What do you mean, another T. Kingfisher book so soon? If I didn't have to save them up, I would gobble up her books one after the other without much of a break. To be fair, though, I had just finished A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara and needed something light and funny and guaranteed to make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. So yeah... another T. Kingfisher book.
THORNHEDGE
by T. Kingfisher
Published: Tor, 2023
ebook: 112 pages
Standalone Novella
My rating: 7.5/10
Opening line: In the early days, the wall of thorns had been distressingly obvious.
There's a princess trapped in a tower. This isn't her story.
Meet Toadling. On the day of her birth, she was stolen from her family by the fairies, but she grew up safe and loved in the warm waters of faerieland. Once an adult though, the fae ask a favor of Toadling: return to the human world and offer a blessing of protection to a newborn child. Simple, right?
But nothing with fairies is ever simple.
Centuries later, a knight approaches a towering wall of brambles, where the thorns are as thick as your arm and as sharp as swords. He's heard there's a curse here that needs breaking, but it's a curse Toadling will do anything to uphold…
Aaaah, the one gripe with T. Kingfisher books I almost always have is that they are simply too short. Even the long ones. This little novella here is, indeed, very short, but that is pretty much its only flaw.
We are introduced to the story's protagonist Toadling as she protects the titular thorn hedge and the castle said hedge surrounds from outsiders. At first, when the hedge is shiny and new, alluring and promising glory and dormant princesses, it's quite the job keeping the eager princes and knights away. But as the years pass and the hedge grows scraggier and less obviously magical, as humans change the landscapes nearby, wars come and go, interest in what is hidden behind the brambles wanes. And while Toadling is all alone, she at least is happy in the knowledge that she's doing her job and protecting what she has promised to protect.
Until one day, a young man arrives and strikes up a conversation with Toadling. Yes, he too is incredibly curious to find out what is hidden in the castle that is said to be behind the thorns, but he is much more interested in Toadling, who she is and why she wants him to go away so badly...
In the way we have come to expect and love from Kingfisher, we learn about who Toadling is (born human, exchanged with a fairy changeling and raised in the fae lands), how she came to be where she is, and who/what is hidden behind the thorn hedge. If the retelling of the fairytale Sleeping Beauty isn't the reason you pick up this book, that's okay. The fairy tale is definitely there and recognisably so, but things go rather differently than the Brothers Grimm would have us believe. Again - as is only expected from T. Kingfisher.
And just to be clear, the fact that we get what we expect is in no way meant as a negative here! You come for the clever turn of phrase, the pragmatic, lovable heroines, the respectful potential friendship/romance, and you get exactly that. Sometimes it's exactly right to get what you want and not every book needs to have some deep, dark twist. Although if you would like one of those, the whole Sleeping Beauty story gets turned on its head, so there you go. 🙂
While there is always a lot to love in Kingfishers's fairy tale retellings, this one offered a few aspects I enjoyed even more than I had anticipated. First and foremost, Toadling's magic (which she learned from the fae creatures who raised her) grants her the ability to turn into a toad (duh) and she loves all things wet and muddy - not things one usually associates with a fairy tale heroine. Toadling is also not conventionally beautiful.
But then, neither Halim, the knight who is determined to figure out the thorn hedge's secret, but even more determined to make his mother proud and be polite to Toadling. My goodness, did I love Halim and the way he curses and immediately apologizes. Him being a Muslim character (albeit not a very devout one, according to himself) just makes the whole story a little more interesting and less run of the mill. The two of them together, careful, respectful, just two good people looking for their place in the world, were enormous fun to read about.
The other thing I adored was Toadling's backstory and the found family that replaced her "real" family - the one she was snatched from as a newborn. I found the tale of Toadling's early childhood both heartbreaking and hopeful, and although her fairy childhood isn't at all glamorous and her new family far from shiny or pretty, I found myself caring about them and about Toadling's place in their midsts without even noticing. That's Kingfisher for you, sly writer that she is, sneaking her way into your heart while you're looking elsewhere.
The resolution to the Sleeping Beauty plot was neither very surprising nor all that original, given what comes before, but again, that doesn't diminish the novella as a whole. I for one adored every page, I laughed and felt sorrow, and I spent a couple of wonderful hours with this book. If you've never read T. Kingfisher, this would actually be a great place to start, at least if you want to begin with the fairy tale books. For my part, I'll tackle the fourth Paladin novel next, which is one of T. Kingfisher's romantic fantasy series. The bottom line is: You can never have too many T. Kingfisher books.
MY RATING: 7.5/10 - Very, very good!
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