Booklog 75/2019: T. Kingfisher: The Seventh Bride

[jacey]

Rhea, a miller's daughter, is less than pleased when Lord Crevan, a wealthy minor noble, makes an offer for her hand in marriage. She's only fifteen, and even if she did want to get married, miller's daughters don't marry lords, especially ones they've never met. He family aren't happy either, but they don't see that they have any choice in giving up their daughter if they want to keep their mill (and probably their lives) so Rhea goes tramping off through a magic wood to the sorceror-Lord's house, which can't possibly exist because surely someone must have noticed it. On the way she acquires a hedgehog, communicative, but not in a talking sort of way. In reaching Crevan's lodge she finds that she's niot actually Crevan's first bride, she's his seventh, and at least three of the previous ones are alive and well and already living in the lodge. Maria, the cook, Sylvie a blind woman, and the silently disapproving Ingeth, are obvious, but then there's also the clock wife and the golem wife, plus Lady Elegans, the only one who's dead and buried. Crevan's home is enchanted. There's no escape. With the help of Maria and Sylvie, Rhea and the hedgehog have to figure out how to beat Crevan before Rhea's wedding. This is a creepy fairytale-type story which draws you into the mystery of what Crevan wants from Rhea, and how she can avoid her fate. 

T. Kingfisher (the pen name for Ursula Vernon) is one of this year's discoveries and one of my new favourite authors.