I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Thornhedge by T. KingfisherPublished by Tor Publishing Group on August 15, 2023
Genres: Action & Adventure, Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology, fantasy, Fiction
Pages: 128
Format: ARC, eBook
Source: Netgalley
Buy on Bookshop
From USA Today bestselling author T. Kingfisher, Thornhedge is the tale of a kind-hearted, toad-shaped heroine, a gentle knight, and a mission gone completely sideways.
*A very special hardcover edition, featuring foil stamp on the casing and custom endpapers illustrated by the author.*
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...
"The way Thornhedge turns all the fairy tales inside out is a sharp-edged delight." —Katherine Addison, author of The Goblin Emperor
Everything T Kingfisher (and Ursula Vernon) does is perfect. This is not an exaggeration. Everything I have read under any pen name, I have loved. This story is no different.
Yes, this is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty. No, it is not the Disney or even the Grimm version. This is a story about unintended consequences and regret and, I think, how one tends to punish oneself far longer than one deserves. It also very neatly flips the tale of Sleeping Beauty on its head. After all, why would you want to trap a maiden in a tower behind a hedge of thorns? Perhaps the maiden is actually dangerous, and did something to deserve being imprisoned.
Toadling is a gentle protagonist, lonely and anxious and afraid. Halim is not the brave prince, but a poor, bumbling knight who loves his mother and a good story. This is a sweet story, one for the misfits, the toad creatures and unhandsome knights who would rather sit by the fire than ride gloriously to war. It says, no matter how tough the task in front of you, you can only do your best. Sometimes you will mess up, and suffer the consequences, and continue to do your best anyway. Sometimes you try your hardest, and still lose, and no amount of love has ever changed someone’s nature, no matter how hard you try.
This is a novella, and it is short enough one can devour it quickly. I suggest that you do.
