Title: A Sorceress Comes To Call / Thornhedge Author: T. Kingfisher Genre: Adult, fantasy Type: E-book Publisher: Tor Books
A dark retelling of the Brothers Grimm’s Goose Girl, rife with secrets, murder, and forbidden magic
Cordelia knows her mother is unusual. Their house doesn’t have any doors between rooms, and her mother doesn’t allow Cordelia to have a single friend—unless you count Falada, her mother’s beautiful white horse. The only time Cordelia feels truly free is on her daily rides with him. But more than simple eccentricity sets her mother apart. Other mothers don’t force their daughters to be silent and motionless for hours, sometimes days, on end. Other mothers aren’t sorcerers.
After a suspicious death in their small town, Cordelia’s mother insists they leave in the middle of the night, riding away on Falada’s sturdy back, leaving behind all Cordelia has ever known. They arrive at the remote country manor of a wealthy older man, the Squire, and his unwed sister, Hester. Cordelia’s mother intends to lure the Squire into marriage, and Cordelia knows this can only be bad news for the bumbling gentleman and his kind, intelligent sister.
Hester sees the way Cordelia shrinks away from her mother, how the young girl sits eerily still at dinner every night. Hester knows that to save her brother from bewitchment and to rescue the terrified Cordelia, she will have to face down a wicked witch of the worst kind.
I love retellings. Everyone who knows me knows this. It is in most of my bios on my book related platforms, it is in the stories I wind up writing – retellings can be so fun and imaginative, and T. Kingfisher continuously writes some of my favourites.
I didn’t know The Goose Girl well. When I heard A Sorceress Comes To Call was based on it, I did a little Wiki search about the original story. It told me some, but not enough that I could predict what Kingfisher would do with her characters. And it is safe to say I can never predict what she’s going to do with her characters. They are so wonderfully fleshed out and three-dimensional and fun, and there’s always a bit of hopefulness present even in the darkness of her stories – my kind of retellings, to be honest.
The dual POV of Sorceress being two women with different experiences but the same common enemy was such a good choice. I loved the bond that we see built between them from both sides. Their strengths are different – one learning to overcome her abuse to save not just herself while the other learns she needs to open herself back up to the people who care about her – but they balance each other so well. They’re what each other needs to survive not just their enemy but to truly find a way to live their lives.
It was such a captivating read. Heavy in many ways, Cordelia’s abuse at her mother’s hands is implicit and difficult to read, control not just an intangible thing but something forced on her. And the mental anguish she goes through is painful. Hester’s chapters have that same sense of horror from the side of someone realising she’s facing someone more evil than she first realises, who will go to extreme lengths even with her own child – it is a darker read than I usually pick up but I couldn’t put it down.
(I am out of practice in writing reviews, clearly. I’m trying so hard not to give spoilers!)
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…
Thornhedge on the other hand was a much quicker and lighter read. Still horrific in ways that had me internally screaming, but I was so engrossed in the novella that I finished it within the span of a day. I regret nothing.
Both Toadling and Halim are very My Brand characters. A little soft, a little awkward, always wanting to do the right thing but not sure if they are going about it the right way – within the span of slightly more than a hundred pages, I fell in love with the both of them so deeply.
This was a Sleeping Beauty retelling the sort I’ve never seen before. Kingfisher really went ‘what if the princess herself was the villain?’ and leaned so far into it I couldn’t even feel bad for what happened to her at the end.
Kingfisher also has a way of writing characters that are pretty touch-starved, another thing I absolutely adore, and these stories were no different. Just, the inherent desire to be seen and loved for who you are and not how useful or malleable you can be, and affection freely given being something you don’t understand but crave!!! I love it so much.
I’m Ara, a Southeast Asian writer who someday hopes to have published a novel, and who is currently losing herself in the worlds created by others. I love books and food and television and blogging and I get distracted and sidetracked easily.
