This book suffers from Game of Thrones syndrome: too many characters, too long, and too much…incest??
I’m endlessly fascinated by early medieval England, but I found it really hard to keep up with all of the political machinations and players in this book. So much so that I kind of stopped trying. Oh, we’re fighting this guy now? Sure, why not. Have I met this person before? Well, his name is Aethel-something so I’m sure he’s someone important. Wait, wasn’t this guy supposed to be heir? Guess he’s not!
Look, it is entirely possible that that’s a me problem. But when there are hundreds of characters of varying importance, all with somewhat similar names, some of whom we only meet via exposition…idk. I was a bit mazed, you might say. For all the fabricated details in this book, she could’ve maybe cut some of the pointless politics.
Hild, while overall an interesting protagonist, has more than a few eye-roll moments. I’m sorry, I don’t care how tall she is, there’s no way a 14-year-old girl never properly trained in the martial arts is beating elite, war-hardened soldiers at least ten years her senior. With a stick.
There are some really good side characters in this book, but none so frustrating as Hild’s mother, Breguswith. She started as this fascinating Lady Macbeth character until she just…wasn’t. The Osric plot went nowhere. She kinda stops helping both her daughters halfway through. It seems she trades her delicious political scheming for a life of wool. Wool and a hot minstrel boy toy.
As for the incest…what the ACTUAL fuck. Look, I know GoT has turned our collective brains to gobbledygook and has us rooting for uncle and niece to get together. But this was just WEIRD. And unnecessary! Cian and Hild are raised pretty much from birth as practically siblings. Hild figures out by, like, 7 years old that they are literal siblings. I thought maybe Griffith was building for some sort of horrible Shakespearean reveal for Cian, but nope! That was actually the main romance! That everyone but Cian seems to know about and is fine with! What!!!
I have no idea how to rate this book. At times I really enjoyed it, and at times I just wished it would end already. Maybe I just don’t understand it. I definitely don’t understand the incest.
by IndigoBlueBird