Elizabeth Lim

Six Crimson Cranes borrows the shape of the wild swans fairy tale and moves it into an imperial East Asian setting, with a princess cursed to silence while her brothers are turned into birds.

Lim worked in finance before writing and has said she wrote the books she wanted as a child and could not find, with Chinese and Japanese folklore at the centre rather than as decoration.

Spin the Dawn is the tailoring one, with a competition, a disguise and a journey for cloth woven from sunlight.