Mara is the last sister in a royal family. Both of her older sisters have had to marry a prince in a neighboring kingdom for protection of their kingdom. Mara is sent to a nunnery, not to become a nun but to be protected. To make sure she has no children, takes no husband , and is there in case the prince needs a third wife. Mara spends 15 years in the nunnery living her life, waiting for something. Her first sister died within a few months of marrying the prince. Her second sister has been married to the prince for a very long time. They’ve had one child, who unfortunately dies at approximately the age of 10 from the plague. It’s at this funeral that Mara discovers her sister is being abused by the prince and determines she’s going to get even. She is going to kill the prince. However, this is not an easy task as in this world fairy godmothers exist, and the princes fairy godmother has blessed him that no magic or other harm can come to him. Mara sets out on her to complete three impossible tasks: one to make a cape of nettles and wear it, two bring bones back to life, and three to capture moonlight in a jar. And it’s only once she’s done that the bone wife can help her break the blessing to kill the prince. This review is in sequential order, however the book is not. The book starts as Mara is creating her bone dog. Of her weaving the bones together with wire, hoping against hope that she can get this pile of marrow to create life. Throughout the book you’re going backwards and forward in time both with what happened tomorrow and what happened to her family. This book is phenomenal. The storytelling, the writing, the overall what’s going on. The reader is glued from the first sentence until the very end of the book. This will not be my first T Kingfisher and I see why she has a devoted following. It’s only recently that I have learned that Kingfisher is a pseudonym for Ursula Vernon. Ursula Vernon writes fabulous children’s books. She’s known for the Dragonbreath, series, and other fully illustrated kids’ books. I have read and loved those books in the past so it makes sense that since that I would love her other works. This book was so good. The author is now on my auto buy list. ( )

[2.75] Adult fantasy has never been my genre, but a glowing review on NPR nudged me to give “Nettle & Bone” a try. Even though I was impressed by the author’s originality in retooling some popular fairytale themes (fairy godmothers, goblins, etc.), I found the pacing incredibly slow and some of the characters a bit tedious. That being said, the twisty storyline, although a bit jarring at the start given the non-linear narrative, kept my interest. ( )

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher is a 2022 fantasy novel. This is a dark fairy tale about Marra, the third princess of a small kingdom, who has seen her sisters suffer at the hands of an abusive prince of the northern lands. When his first wife, Marra’s elder sister dies, he marries the next sister, Kania, and at the same time, has Marra sent to a convent to keep her on hold in case he needs a third wife in the future. Marra spends years at the convent waiting for someone to come to their rescue but just as she is about to turn 30 she comes to the realization that she will have to do the job herself.

Meanwhile her sister Kania is going through one pregnancy after another in the hopes of delivering a male heir. Her babies either die or are still born. She also suffers injuries from her husband. Marra is afraid that time is going to run out for Kania. She gathers a small group together and these characters - a witch, a godmother, a disgraced warrior and Bonedog, an animal pieced together from resurrected bones of deceased dogs form a strong, close group who set off on a quest to save Marra’s sister.

Nettle & Bone was a fun read that was high in both humor and excitement. The author mixes some horror elements, some fairy tale elements and a generous helping of righteous feminist anger. This quirky adventure story was made all the more interesting by alternating dark and grim sections with warm and cozy ones. ( )

Admito que las primeras 20-50 paginas me costaron un poco, quizá porque venia más acostumbrado al estilo más ligero y medieval clásico de sus novelas de paladines.

Pero enseguida conecté de nuevo gracias a los personajes que crea Kingfisher, uno de sus mayores fuertes. Y el humor rodeado de cosas creepies.

T.Kingfisher ya se esta ganando un sitio en mi corazón escriba lo que escriba (pero yo quiero más paladines). ( )

The book was labeled as “This isn’t the kind of fairy tale where the princess marries a prince. It’s the one where she kills him” and though that sounds sensationalistic, it was true.

It’s also a type of fantasy book I’m not a fan of: the fairy tale retelling/pastiche. You’d think I would be, as I write them, but in novel form I’ve found they don’t quite transcend their origins. These tales, in Western literature at least, were made to be short and pithy. Stretching them out belabors the point. The critical praise was enough, though, that I started reading, and I was glad I did.

The book hit all the notes of a fairy tale but was grounded in an often brutal realism, with a deadpan narrative style and some unlikely protagonists: a 30-year-old “short and round” princess Marra who’s been living in a nunnery for ten years; a witch who can commune with the dead; the princess’s fairy godmother; and a weathered, exiled diplomat-warrior they rescue from the Goblin Market. Like many fairy tales it’s a quest with a side journeys, but an unusual one. Marra’s sister Kania is married to the abusive king of another kingdom and Marra feels he will kill her after she’s borne his heir, so Marra sets out to kill this powerful king first.

As I said, I’m not a fan, but it won me over because of the intelligence of the writing, its observations about human nature, and its heart. I can see what the accolades were about. I was continuously surprised at how it never stooped to the obvious tropes and what it achieved in a minimum of words. I especially loved how the author took a trope – the fairy godmother – and gave an almost scientific in-depth examination of the skills and duties of such a profession, and even more admiringly, sprinkled them throughout the plot, with humor, instead of info dumping them all at once. It’s something other fantasy writers should take note of.

Other elements I enjoyed: A being called The Tooth Dancer in the Goblin Market who extracts teeth; a Frankenstein’s monster dog made out of bones, a friendly scene-stealer; and a search through an underground tomb complex as mysterious as the hobbits’ trek through Moiria or Tenar’s in The Tombs of Atuan. I could tell the tomb scenes ran away from the author in the realism department – I mean, the kingdom was small, and the tomb HUGE – but it was scary fun, and so was the hallucinogenic idea of it. It was never explained how the place got to be so big, but neither were many of the weirder elements, which again reminded me of the world’ realism, that in real life weird things often aren’t explained and must be taken as is. Justice doesn’t always work out I in this world, but there is coziness and humanity to be had along the way.

If anything annoyed me in the plot, it was the main character kept hold of her introversion and shyness for way too long into the story, when she should have begun shedding some of it at least. But, that was a quibble.

Recommended. ( )