Switched

About the book

The story begins with a prologue entitled "Eleven Years Ago", in which Wendy recounts her sixth birthday party. She expresses contempt at the gifts of fragile porcelain dolls she does not want. She throws a tantrum at seeing her mother has bought her a chocolate birthday cake, to which her mother asks what sort of child she is. Wendy's mother claims she is not her daughter, and attempts to take her life with the knife she had been using to cut the cake.

In the modern day, we see Wendy as a troubled young woman who struggles in school and has forced her brother, Matt, and aunt, Maggie, to uproot their lives and move away when she is expelled from school yet again. She soliloquises that she has a power of persuasion and thus demonstrates on a threatening teacher. She approaches the mysterious and fellow new-student Finn Holmes after class and asks why he always stares blankly at her.

The two start an odd friendship until Finn confronts her about her using persuasion on a classmate. He then reveals to her that he is a member of the Trylle, a tribe of trolls who live as a community in Minnesota called Förening. He tells her that he is a Tracker, and insists on returning her to Förening. Wendy refuses until two members of a rival Trylle tribe, the Vittra, attack her and attempt to kidnap her. Finn intervenes, taking her back to Förening.

There, Wendy meets her real mother, Elora, who informs her that she is actually the princess of the tribe, and is the highest rung of society. She meets Rhys and Rhiannon, both something the Trylle call "mänsklig".

Whilst wandering the halls of the Palace, Wendy breaks into a locked room stocked with many undisplayed photos. She recognizes in one of them a sad Elora with a male baby, then realizes one contains herself, wearing a white gown and an injured leg, an horrified expression on her face. Finn discovers her and tells her that Elora's Trylle power consists of precognition that she can only utilise through painting. Finn tells her of the societal rules of the Trylle; whilst the Princess, Queens and Marksinna (nobles) are the highest, the Trackers and mänsklig are considered even lower than the peasantry.

Description from Open Library.