Excerpt from The Magician of Tiger Castle by Louis Sachar, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

These were dangerous times. We didn't dare let the French to the north or the Italian city-states to the south learn of our vulnerability. Even the pope maintained a mercenary army and was always looking to expand the Papal States.

We just needed to make it through the wedding, which would first be preceded by a lavish banquet, and then a weeklong festival. The marriage between Princess Tullia and Prince Dalrympl had been dubbed "the wedding of the century."

The wedding was more than a marriage between two people. It would be the union of two kingdoms.

We sophisticated Esquavetians had always looked down upon the crude and boorish Oxatanians. The stereotypical Oxatanian oaf was often the butt of our jokes. But the truth was, we desperately needed their fearsome army and their efficient economy.


Inside my workshop, Xavier seemed more like a shipping clerk than the finance minister, making careful note as each sack of black sand was unloaded. There was a nervous excitement in his manner, giving me the sense that in his mind, each sack was already filled with gold.

I cautioned Xavier that whatever gold I might be able to produce would necessarily weigh less than the sand. He shrugged off my concern, saying there was plenty more sand on the black beach of Iceland.

In hindsight, I should never have agreed to take on this project. My expertise was in the living world: plants, bugs, sea life, and animals. I had never applied my magic to rocks and minerals.

Excerpted from The Magician of Tiger Castle by Louis Sachar. Copyright © 2025 by Louis Sachar. Excerpted by permission of Ace Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.