Caraval

Caraval is the first novel of Stephanie Garber's first series, published in 2017 by Flatiron Books. It is the story of two sisters on a small island under the control of a cruel father, and of a performance that arrives once a year and invites the audience to take part in it, with the promise that everything they see is a performance.

Scarlett Dragna has spent her life saving up every account she has heard of Caraval, and by the time the invitation arrives her father has already arranged a marriage for her. Her sister, Tella, is the one who gets her off the island. Then Tella vanishes, because this year's Caraval has been built around her: whoever finds her first wins, and Scarlett is the one who has to do it.

Scarlett is given a set of assurances that she cannot verify. Nothing in the game is real, nobody is hurt, and the sailor who carried her across the water is not to be trusted. She has five nights to work out which of those statements hold. The island's magic is real enough to be dangerous, the people who work for Caraval have their own reasons for being there, and the man running the game is not in the habit of explaining the rules.

The book is the first of the Caraval trilogy, and it establishes the game, the two sisters and the world that Garber later used for the Once Upon a Broken Heart novels as well. Legendary followed in 2017 and Finale in 2019, and the second and third books move the same game to different characters and different stakes.