Nettle & Bone

Nettle & Bone is a 2022 fantasy horror novel by T. Kingfisher. It was published by Tor and released in April of 2022. The novel was nominated for several awards upon publication, including the 2022 Nebula Award for Best Novel, the 2023 Locus Award for fantasy, and won 2023 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

This isn’t the kind of fairytale where the princess marries a prince. It’s the one where she kills him. Marra never wanted to be a hero. As the shy, convent-raised, third-born daughter, she escaped the traditional fate of princesses, to be married away for the sake of an uncaring throne. But her sister wasn’t so fortunate—and after years of silence, Marra is done watching her suffer at the hands of a powerful and abusive prince. Seeking help for her rescue mission, Marra is offered the tools she needs, but only if she can complete three seemingly impossible tasks: build a dog of bones, sew a cloak of nettles, and capture moonlight in a jar. But, as is the way in tales of princes and witches, doing the impossible is only the beginning. Hero or not—now joined by a disgraced ex-knight, a reluctant fairy godmother, an enigmatic gravewitch and her fowl familiar—Marra might finally have the courage to save her sister, and topple a throne.

The core of this novel is a quest. Marra first goes on a quest to complete the tasks required to gain the gravewitch’s help, and then a second, larger, quest to save her sister. Along the way, she finds companions to assist in the quest. It’s a very tightly woven, well-executed story. It starts off very strongly, with Marra already in the midst of one of her tasks and makes great use of flashbacks to keep the reader engaged as the story progresses. There are points when Marra’s “present” actions might be more mundane, but the author uses those lulls to have her reflect back on her past, and highlight why she’s chosen this path. The narrative also makes great use of foreshadowing for the climax of the story, as well as callbacks to earlier moments. The tension slowly builds as the band of misfits gets closer to the goal, and the final confrontation is exciting and dramatic, while not going over the top. The ending wraps up well and doesn’t feel rushed.

I found the characters in this novel to be endearing and compelling in equal measure. An author who wrote a blurb for this novel described it as “what happened when all of the overlooked bit players of classic fantasy somehow windup on the main quest” and it’s an apt way of describing Marra and her companions. Though the characters fit certain archetypes, they aren’t cliches. Marra begins the story as a princess hoping someone else will do the heroic thing and save her sister, and transforms into a stronger person, confident in herself and able to take matters into her own hand. Fenris is a disgraced knight, but his backstory and behavior show that he’s much more nuanced than that trope implies. Agnes is a fairy godmother, but she doesn’t fall in line with the Cinderella-esque fairy godmothers that readers might be used to. They’re a ragtag bunch, and each one fits into the story well. As an aside, I was delighted to read that Marra was around thirty years old. It was refreshing to have an old character driving the story.

I enjoyed the writing overall. The descriptions were vivid without being too flowery. The author used the prose to expertly create a tone which matched the fantasy elements just as well as the horror ones. The novel isn’t outright horror, but a more subtle kind, leaning heavily into dark fantasy with the relevant elements. There is a bit of a drag in the story just after the midpoint, once the flashbacks stop, but it wasn’t a distracting amount of slowness.

Nettle & Bone was a fantastic read for me. It had wonderful and compelling characters, as well as an engaging story. The horror elements blend well with the fantasy aspect of the story. The writing set the scene perfectly, though there were some slight pacing issues. All in all, it was a great read, and one I’d recommend to any fantasy fan, looking for something a bit outside the norm.

Rating: 4.75 Stars

Purchase Links for the book: Bookshop / Amazon

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