Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher – Review

Published: August 15, 2023

Publisher: Tor Books

Series: N/A

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 128 (Hardcover)

My Rating 4 Stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:
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 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…

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What if there was a good reason that Sleeping Beauty was locked away beyond a wall of thorns? What if the spell was protecting the world from her wickedness? If that intrigues you, then Thornhedge is going to be the re-telling for you.

Toadling is a small faerie who can turn into an unobtrusive little toad. She guards a hedge of thorns, which in turn guards a crumbling tower. Every day Toadling prays that enough time has passed and everyone will have forgotten the story of a bespelled princess sleeping in a tower. Unfortunately for Toadling people record things like that in books, and sometimes people actually read them and go searching for the source of the fairytale. This is where we meet Halim, a kindly Muslim knight who wishes to know if there is truth behind the story he read.

Thornhedge is a novella so I won’t go into further detail and spoil the story. Rest assured, Toadling and Halim are both wonderful characters. As the story goes along, there are flashbacks that catalog Toadling’s life and how she came to guard a cursed princess and why that particular princess was cursed in the first place. The story is melancholy yet sweet and perfect for a short weekend reading session. I can guarantee if you’ve enjoyed T. Kingfisher’s other books you’ll enjoy this as well.