Nettle & Bone

Product Information

When the cattle ran out and the deer were gone, they ate the horses, and when the horses were gone, they ate the dogs. Anyway, it wasn't the topic as much as the dark but funny fairy tale feel that made this book so fun. The Chicago Review of Books praised the novel for its darkness and its re-interpretation of classic fairy tale tropes. For a moment she had envied them, two people punished through no fault of their own, because they had each other. If they felt that they were safer here than they were outside it, it was not her place to tell them otherwise.

Seeking help from a powerful gravewitch, Marra is offered the tools to kill a prince - if she can complete three impossible tasks. When she discovers her sister is being abused, she is determined to stop this prince using whatever magic she can scrounge up. The expectation that women will simply churn out kids without complaint is skewered by Kingfisher, in a refreshingly honest portrayal for a character like Marra, who doesn’t appear to have any interest in bearing children. com, Martin Cahill observes that Kingfisher "doesn't shrink or hide from how often fairy tales brutalize young women, how so many stories take their agency, their bodies, and their will for use and abuse by kingdoms and kings alike. For example, Marra has to make a choice between allowing Fenris to be tortured and saving the rest of the group; Agnes has to make choices between "bad and worse" blessings.marra adjusts to the simplicity of a novice's life, and when her sister finally becomes pregnant five years later, she attends the christening of kania's daughter, where she meets vorling for the first time and begins to suspect he was responsible for damia's untimely death, and fears that kania is also in danger, until/unless/after she produces a son.

So, our little team of heroes is composed of a dust-wife with a possessed hen, a warrior who tried to die, and a godmother who's quite bad at gifting babies but ends up with a cursed chick. This book is a modern classic and belongs alongside The Last Unicorn and Spinning Silver on your shelf. Seeking help from a powerful gravewitch, Marra is offered the tools to kill a prince―if she can complete three impossible tasks.Her elder sister, Damia, enters into an arranged marriage with Prince Vorling of the Northern Kingdom.