Thornhedge
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4.6 • 89 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novella!
From New York Times bestselling author T. Kingfisher, Thornhedge is the tale of a kind-hearted, toad-shaped heroine, a gentle knight, and a mission gone completely sideways.
*The very special hardcover edition features a foil stamp on the casing and custom endpapers illustrated by the author.*
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 Toadling: 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…
"The way Thornhedge turns all the fairy tales inside out is a sharp-edged delight."
—Katherine Addison, author of The Goblin Emperor
Also by T. Kingfisher
Nettle & Bone
A Sorceress Comes to Call
What Moves the Dead
What Feasts at Night
A House with Good Bones
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kingfisher (What Moves the Dead) continues her hot streak with this equally haunting, heartfelt, and darkly humorous horror riff on "Sleeping Beauty." The fairy Toadling is "neither beautiful nor made of malice, as many of the Fair Folk are said to be," but instead "fretful and often tired" due to her exhausting efforts to keep a certain princess confined within a tower surrounded by a wall of thorns. It would be an easier job if tales of the princess did not keep spreading, unabated even by an early medieval outbreak of the Black Death. These stories draw Halim, a curious and courteous Muslim knight in search of a good quest. Halim is not put off by Toadling's habit of turning into a toad when overwhelmed or frightened, and befriends her, helping Toadling to move past 200 years of dread to explain just who—or rather what—is in the tower, and how the fairy came to be responsible for keeping it there. The slow reveal of Toadling's connection to the princess, and what the princess actually is, fashions a subtle and satisfying horror story, while Kingfisher's trademark wit and compassion transforms "Sleeping Beauty" into a moving meditation on guilt, grief, and duty, as well as a surprisingly sweet romance between outsiders. There are no false notes here.
Customer Reviews
Sleeping Beauty Reimagined
“Thornhedge” is another beautiful fantasy novella by T. Kingfisher, which is the pseudonym Ursula Vernon uses for her works for adults. It takes place in a medieval alternate world that features magic, fairies, and changelings. Our protagonist is a delightful girl known as Toadling. Toadling was originally a human girl kidnapped as a baby and replaced by a high-fairy changeling. She was raised in Fairy by aquatic monsters known as Greenteeth. However, she was happy and loved and all was well, till a goddess selects her to deal with the problem of her replacement.
This is a very different retelling of the story of Sleeping Beauty, one that turns the very premise of the story around. It’s just long enough to tell the story and leave you wanting more. It even hints at a happy ending. It’s really quite good, which is probably why it won the 2024 Hugo Award for Best Novella!
One of my top 10 favorite books ever!
Incredibly beautiful and poetic, this book made me so happy. It is well written and the story will stick to your mind forever. Buy it!
Charming, poetic, and delightful
Fairy tales are often so stuffed with allegory and other other such contrivances that the tales themselves are thin, weak fare, and the characters pale as spring ice… this was not that type of fairy tale. The characters may have been humble, but they were a rich feast of conflicting complexities, filled with surprising and beautiful human truths — in bits and pieces and sudden deluges, the way wisdom comes for us all. The language held the cadence and lushness of the most high-gothic fairy tale imaginable, but with a believable and artistic voice… it was scrumptious. And I agree, Ms. Kingfisher… the story IS sweet. Even if the Faerielands are as bright and dark and chaotic and deadly as I grew up knowing. So thank you, and my thanks to Toadling, for illuminating the path of this journey.