Tag Archives: Fantasy

King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo

1 Reply
King of Scars book cover appearing to be a crest carved from golden stone, the Ravkan double headed eagle is rampant behind a shield with three large tears as if from claw marks along it

The Darkling has been defeated, Alina and Mal are running their orphanage in Keramzin, and Ravka is experiencing a brief period of peace as King Nikolai Lantsov’s farming reforms bring improvements to the lives of the common man… but this is Ravka. Of course, things are never that simple. Nikolai is still possessed by a demon, a legacy of the Darkling’s merzost that lives on after it’s creator’s demise, its power seeming to grow stronger day by day. As enemies threaten at the borders and challengers of the Lantsov bloodline stake their claims for the Ravkan throne, a plague of miracles is breaking out across Ravka, pointing towards the fold where a cult of worshippers demanding churches and recognition for The Starless Saint agitate at home…

I regretted how long Six of Crows sat in my e-reader before I got around to reading it, and having gone on quite the Bardugo binge in the last few months I do have to wonder why I didn’t hop on the Grishaverse books faster. I think it might have been because I read that the Crows didn’t really figure in the books outside of the Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom Duology, but I think that the two clever fox backed into a corner can match Kaz Brekker for readability on his day.

And in King of Scars, backed into a corner he is. But it’s nice to see Zoya come to the fore- I love, love, love her for not being a people person but actually having a heart and the weight of all the people she’s responsible for and her formative experiences making her who she is in this. With a nice Nina Zenik side plot and various old friends and foes popping up in these books there’s a lot here for established Grisha fans before we get on to the newer characters (like Isaak and Yuri offering us lessons in being true to ourselves and the perils of letting a man live rent free in your head, not to mention Juris, aaaaaah Juris!), though it would make a lot of sense to read the Shadow and Bone trilogy and Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom duology before branching out into The King of Scars/Rule of Wolves duology for context and to avoid spoiling all the other books.

I love how this book takes the whole a legend is a story based in fact idea and plays with it, twisting it out to the point where the characters stories are legends being written and colliding with actual legends within the context of the Grishaverse, there’s something very meta about it but at the same time in a way that doesn’t seek to intellectualise, it’s clever but so part of the action you don’t really notice it happening.

Masterful as always from Bardugo, and I’ve now bought Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo for my e-reader because I have almost no impulse control and couldn’t wait long enough to get to the bookshop and pick up the next in the series. Now I’m just really intrigued to see how Netflix will cast Nikolai or Sturmhond for the Shadow and Bone series, I think it’s only Nikolai and Wylan who have yet to be announced of the more major novel characters from the Grishaverse.

Witchshadow by Susan Dennard

Leave a reply

I’ve been pre-ordering a few new releases recently, and have been so excited to have them turn up in the post a week or two ahead of the advertised publication date. The most recent of these has been Witchshadow the fourth book in the Witchlands series by Susan Dennard, which I’ve been itching to get my fingers on for ages.

The novel focuses on Iseult det Midenzi, on the run from the Hell-Bards with Owl and a weasel who isn’t a weasel, following a foiled scheme to save Safi’s uncle Eron by marrying her to Emperor Henrick. In theory it picks up where Bloodwitch left off, with the major characters scattered across the Witchlands as they mobilise for war.

I say in theory, because it took me a little while to gather the threads of where things had left off… what happened to Aedun? Becoming possessed by an ancient being feels like something the reader needed to be shown but I missed that. I’ve loved the Witchlands books so far, but for me this was a little chaotic. I was struggling to keep up with who and what was a Paladin and the Witchlands lore at time, and I think that may be because I have yet to read Sightwitch which was billed as being a separate non-essential novel in the series but I suspect might actually be key to some of the passages in this book making instant sense as supposed to sense that you have to work for. The novel was still enjoyable without the context, but I suspect that it would have helped contextualise the sections with Stix and Ryber in Baile’s Slaughter Ring.

Having said that, despite the chaos and the occasional moment of feeling like I was struggling to grab at the threads that flew everywhere, I really enjoyed getting back into the Witchlands novels. I think Susan Dennard writes action scenes really well, so while the mythology could have been clearer, when the time came to initiate and complete, the writing was on point.

If you haven’t read any of the Witchlands series, I’d strongly recommend them, especially if you’re a Leigh Bardugo fan looking for somewhere to bide your time for the next Grishaverse novel, the Witchlands series is a little less dark, in my opinion, and probably well suited to readers who are maybe a little young for the Grishaverse novels, but at the same time, there’s nothing light about them and the characters have a slipperiness and moral greyness in many cases that leaves you wondering where the series will take you. Just read them in order and probably don’t skip Sightwitch!

I’m just wondering when I’ll be able to pre-order the next book now, I understand it’s the last in the series and there’s a lot to bring together. Eeeeek.

A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer

2 Replies

“Rhen,” she calls after me.
I pause in the doorway and face her.
“I’m not going to fall in love with you,” she says.
Her words are not a surprise. I sigh.
“You won’t be the first.”


A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer

Prince Rhen of Emberfall has been eighteen for over three hundred seasons. Cursed by a sorceress to repeat the Autumn of his eighteenth year until he manages to convince a woman to fall in love with him, Rhen sees the curse as a game at first. But at the end of the first season Rhen begins to turn into a monster, and as he does, he forgets who he is. As a beast, he has no control, and murders his entire family, before coming back to himself for the final hour of the season to see the havoc he has wreaked. For three hundred seasons he has turned into a beast, his murderous rampages decimating his kingdom leaving his guard Grey as his only company. And his memory of each season never fades. In his final season, Rhen is ready to accept that he will turn into a monster forever, until Grey is attacked by a young woman who witnesses his attempt to kidnap Rhen’s latest conquest, and he accidentally brings her to Emberfall instead…

On the surface, A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer is hugely problematic. How could it not be when the obvious slap slap kiss love story at the heart of it centres on a handsome prince who with the assistance of his trusty guard kidnaps hundreds of women to use in an attempt to break a curse each season. Details are hazy on what happens to the women (selected for being what the agents of Criminal Minds would call high risk, no family, no support network, no one to miss them when they’ve gone…) when the season is over. Rhen says they return to their world, but it also sounds like he ate a few of them in monster form, so it looks like at least a few of them are now forever Emberfall, as it were.

So yes, a romantic fantasy which starts with two men kidnapping a young woman and keeping her locked up in a castle should set alarm bells ringing, and neon signs flashing problematic, but I actually really enjoyed reading Brigid Kemmerer’s A Curse So Dark and Lonely.

By bringing the reader in towards the very end of the curse skips over the worst excesses of Rhen’s former character that the novel hints at and lets us see him at his most vulnerable. He’s lost everything, and despite his own morbid curiosity about the limits of his curse (he’s tried to end his own life several times, and tried to persuade his Guardsman, Grey to behead him) he’s resigned to his fate, a broken man who is now only concerned about his citizens and owning his failure… And then there’s Harper.

Harper is to A Curse So Dark and Lonely as Clare Randall/Fraser is to the Outlander novels. An intelligent, loyal and empathetic heroine who acts rashly but always with the best intentions. A teenaged girl living in poverty in Washington D.C., she accidentally makes the trip to Emberfall when she sees Grey attempting to kidnap a young woman outside a nightclub, and barely hesitates to rush in and attack him with a tyre iron despite that being even more challenging for Harper than the average woman, because Harper has mild cerebral palsy that affects her balance and movement in one leg.

I haven’t lived with cerebral palsy personally, but I have taught students with mild CP, and I found the portrayal of Harper really refreshing. Finally, a heroine in a YA novel with a named disability that places realistic boundaries on her physical capabilities who isn’t portrayed as a burden, a damsel in distress or in need of fixing. She might take the role of the warrior woman, learning to throw knives and shoot a bow, but what sets her apart is her empathy and fierce intelligence. She’s easily the equal of her kidnappers, and while she doubts she will ever fall in love with Rhen and break the curse, her strong sense of social justice allows her to see that there are plenty of ways he can still help the Kingdom of Emberfall in the meantime.

Part of the reason that the highly problematic kidnapper/captive love story doesn’t become as problematic as it could is the dynamic between Rhen, Grey and Harper. Rhen is an overthinker, always calculating with the need to feel twenty steps ahead of any scenario, Harper is rash and impulsive, Grey acts as the balance between them, and in a move that has shades of Outlander again, teaches Harper to defend herself with a dagger when she tries to attack him. Both young men treat Harper with the utmost respect at all times, almost to the point of deference, and this leads Rhen to quickly drop any pretence of seduction and be honest about his plight.

It was good to see a YA novel where a relationship grows out of total honesty, though despite Kemmerer’s best efforts, I have to admit I struggled to feel much empathy for the Rhen, I found his character fairly brittle even when the ultimate Big Bad, sorceress and magesmith Lilith was brought out to torment him (in fairness it’s hard to blame someone for wanting revenge on a man whose family were responsible for the genocide of her people). In comparison to Rhen, Harper and Grey were far more interesting characters to read about, even though the novel is narrated from Harper and Rhen’s points of view, and I suspect that Kemmerer may have enjoyed writing them more too.

There’s a lot going on in A Curse So Dark and Lonely – deeply troubled families, dying parents, broken kingdoms, debt, bad choices, the weight of the crown and the responsibility that comes with it, but Brigid Kemmerer has woven it all together beautifully in a fantasy novel that does the hard work for you and doesn’t shy away from embracing its characters vulnerabilities.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

Leave a reply

“A dreamer,” scorns her mother.

“A dreamer,” mourns her father.

“A dreamer,” warns Estele.

Still, it does not seem such a bad word.”

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

I’m enjoying books that takes the thought experiments that you turn around in your head when you can’t sleep and renders them magnificent at the moment. Like Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library exploring a world in which you could erase past regrets, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab explores some of those most human of what ifs, what if you could live a life without responsibility? What if you could life as long as you wanted? What if you could be truly loved? What would you give to make these dreams come true? And what else would you be giving without realising?

In 1700s France, Addie LaRue is about to be forced into a life she doesn’t want, pushed into marriage with a widower to become a replacement mother to his three young children, she runs from the church and makes a Faustian pact with a man who might be the darkness, might be the devil, but agrees to give her an unlimited amount of time in exchange for her soul when she doesn’t want it anymore.

But pacts with old god, devils and the darkness are rarely as straightforward as the human making the deal might hope, and Addie soon realises that she’s traded her soul for a curse. She has unlimited time, but no one remembers her, and no one can remember her. She’s forced to walk the world alone, never able to settle or find security, with the darkness stalking at her heels waiting for her to yield. For nearly three hundred years she’s totally almost totally alone, lovers forgetting who she is when they wake in the morning, or a door closes between them until one day, a man in a book shop, with a secret of his own, remembers her.

I’m going to put it out there now that I wish that Addie LaRue was as forgettable as in the book – because then I could read it again for the first time. I don’t often re-read books but with this one I’m tempted. I love the concept, the characters, the writing, the dialogue… I haven’t read any of V.E. Schwab’s other books but after reading The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, I’m tempted. It will be my go to birthday present for so many people this year who I think would love it to.

Spoilers for the Invisible Life of Addie LaRue below…

Does Luc love Addie? Does Addie love Luc? Does Addie love Henry? Does anyone love anyone?

Ah sympathy for the devil. I know, I know, Luc is a complete bastard in many ways but I do feel sorry for him gradually falling for Addie, trying to hold back on the tormenting her, telling her he loves her only to have it thrown back in his face. Given that he’s the devil, the darkness, one of the malevolent old gods, it can’t come as a surprise that he’d want to twist the knife with a Henry shaped trap.

I’ve seen reviews which didn’t buy the Henry/Addie love story but I completely did. Because there are so many different types of love and I think that Addie’s love for Henry is much more about herself than him. It’s less a selfless love, than a need he fulfils. There’s obviously the physical attraction – at first she thinks he’s Luc who has based his own appearance on Addie’s ideal man, and joked about how many of her lovers look like him, she has a type, but also there’s the other needs that he fulfils. He’s the first person who can remember her in three hundred years, he can say her name, he can write her story and she goes for men and women who can leave a mark for her, and this one isn’t allusions in a song, freckles in a painting but her story explicitly spelled out on paper. He also reminds her so much of herself before she was cursed, the fear of time running out, of never being able to do enough, that speaks to her. She relishes his company, the experienced of being remembered, of building a story together…. But I would argue that in the story V.E. Schwab has written, it doesn’t really matter if Addie LaRue loves Henry Strauss, she certainly isn’t sure, even before she realises the full nature of his curse, whether she loves him. She wants to, but she doesn’t wholly believe that she does.

“And then he whispers three words into her hair. “I love you,” he says, and Addie wonders if this is love, this gentle thing. If it is meant to be this soft, this kind. The difference between heat, and warmth. Passion, and contentment. “I love you too,” she says. She wants it to be true.”

To some extent, Addie realises that her love for Henry is like Luc’s love for Addie – they are in love with the only person who knows them. She as much as acknowledges this to herself as she and Henry drive away for the time away by themselves as he runs out of time and Henry asks her if she would have made the same deal again, when she weights up what she’s gained and what she’s lost “She fell in love with the darkness many times, fell in love with a human once.”

So for me, how sincerely we believe in Addie and Henry’s love, the type of love, the depth of it is irrelevant, because to all intents and purposes, the whole relationship is another part of the twisted game that Addie and Luc are playing with each other, with shades of Cathy and Heathcliff, how much can you hurt the person you know you really love? Luc has deliberately set Henry’s curse in motion for him to stumble into the path of Addie, remember her, and for their relationship to grow with the full intention of his big reveal to Addie that surprise, I was always behind it in the dark, twisting the knife, looking for a new way to break you. But for centuries, Addie has revelled in the game of finding the cracks in the curse, of beating Luc at his own game, leaving her mark despite him, to spite him. Henry’s just another extension of this and becomes her trump card in the game she’s been playing against Luc. By apparently submitting to Luc, to free Henry from his curse, she’s setting an example of how she wants Luc to love her by taking her soul out of the deal, and because he believes that she’s chosen him and he’s won he agrees. But by doing this, this allows Henry to survive long enough to publish her story, her name everywhere. A strike against Luc that he doesn’t seem to even be angry about. But then we realise that all of this served a bigger purpose, not only is Addie’s soul now off the table, but the revised deal has provided her with the prospect of the freedom that she’s always truly craved – the terms are now that she will stay by his side as long as he wants her there, and she’s willing to play the twisted love game long term, because never underestimate the hold of a toxic relationship when both parties are determined to win.

“Perhaps it will take twenty years. Perhaps it will take a hundred. But he is not capable of love, and she will prove it. She will ruin him. Ruin his idea of them. She will break his heart, and he will come to hate her once again. She will drive him mad, drive him away. And then, he will cast her off. And she will finally be free.”

So yes, sympathy for the devil, poor Luc has no idea of the hell Addie has in store for him.