Posted by T. Kingfisher writes a book and then I buy it. That’s how the world works.
This book explores abuse, loss, control, and romance all in one go. I think this is a bit darker than her usual tone, but it worked very well and this may be in my top 5 books that she’s written.
Cordelia is in a sorry state at the beginning of the book. She has a twisted relationship with her very abusive mother. Her mother has complete control over her, she can even make her “Obedient”, which is almost like being possessed. For Cordelia, it’s kind of like being a fugue where her consciousness is pushed down as her mother takes over… and sometimes if she’s really made her mother mad, it can last for days. This relationship gets pushed to an extreme as the behaviors she’s forced into become not just being mild mannered at a dinner she doesn’t want to attend, but into self-harm. So, be warned, as I said, this is a little bit darker than what I’ve read in the past. At the start she and her mother are living in a small village where her mother was courting a “benefactor” … but when the man thinks she’s grown too old to be fun anymore both Cordelia and her mother have to leave to go find someone else to prey on.
Her mother has courted older wealthier men all Cordelia’s life, married or not, it doesn’t seem to matter as long as it’s lucrative for them. This time though, instead of finding someone as a fling, her mother wants marriage for herself and her daughter. She’s getting older, as her last benefactor let her know so bluntly, and so it’s time to permanently catch a man. She wants Cordelia moving along the same route although she’s only 14 years old, her mother tells her to lie and say she’s 17 making her more acceptable to be on the marriage market. It’s really gross. Her mother is so gross and sociopathic/narcissistic. She’s also a sorceress.
What’s interesting is that Cordelia didn’t even know her mother was a sorceress until a few chapters into the book. She’s shocked when her mom just drops that info on a whim. Cordelia is a very, very sheltered girl and her mother will randomly tell her bits of info without explaining anything in depth and then just move on like she hadn’t said anything interesting at all. This leaves Cordelia to try and make connections on her own, or try and reach out for help to understand things, but that can be dangerous. She asked other people about being forced to be “obedient” and she can tell by their reactions that not all kids go through that and maybe it’s best not to talk about that.
Hester is the other main POV and I liked her very much. I always appreciate an older character that’s had some time to gain wisdom and wit. Hester would become Cordelia’s step-aunt should her mother get married to the squire, and so these two povs start to spend a lot of time around one another. I really enjoyed the relationship they formed and Hester’s overall demeanor/personality. She’s a woman in moderately high-standing, she’s got servants and whatnot, but she’s not arrogant or haughty and she doesn’t look down on people. She never got married but she does have a love interest of her own and that gets explored as well which was a nice side-story. There’s almost always a romance plot in a T. Kingfisher book, but I’d say this time it took a backseat to the larger story of, let’s stop this murderer.
As I mentioned, this book is a little darker. It honestly added a bit of a bite to the book I liked, it added higher stakes for the small cast we follow. The stakes are small and personal in that the world at large is not in danger, but high personal stakes because quite a few of these characters are murdered along the way. I felt like the themes dealing with pain, loss, guilt, and grief were done in a very real way and thought it was thoughtfully explored in both characters, each of them having their own coping mechanisms. We even see what happens when they lose those coping mechanisms they’ve leaned on for years and had to adapt in the moment.
This was a really good Halloween time read. It didn’t deal with the paranormal too much, but ghosts did make an appearance here and the overall theme was dreary and dark.