Booklog 32/2022: T. Kingfisher: Nettle and Bone

[jacey]

I love T. Kingfisher’s writing. She’s a buy on sight author for me, even her horror books (and generally I don’t read horror). This is not horror, it’s a fantasy with fairy tale elements: a princess (youngest of three); a dog made of bones; a dust wife who speaks with the dead; a steadfast knight rescued from a goblin market; a chicken inhabited by a demon; two godmothers (fairy variety); and a cruel prince. Marra’s two older sisters have been married off (sequentially) to the cruel prince of a powerful northern kingdom. The first mysteriously died, and the second is wearing herself out, staying pregnant to avoid his beatings. Marra, hidden away in a convent in case the prince kills the second sister and needs a third wife, decides to do something about the situation, and sets off to murder the prince. She knows she can’t do it alone so she enlists the help of the dust wife who sets her three impossible tasks. These are a nice bit of misdirection. This is not the story you think it’s going to be. Marra and the dust wife set off to do the dirty deed (with the demon chicken and the bone dog) and pick up the steadfast knight and one fairy godmother along the way.