Antonia Bernardin

The 68th book I consumed this year was Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher. This was an audio listen on Scribd!

A vague summary

Mara is the third daughter of a King, a small nation who have allied themselves to their larger neighbour through marriage. Her eldest sister was married to the prince first and died in suspicious circumstances, now her middle sister is married to him and is forced to go through pregnancy after pregnancy, in order to stave off his abusive behaviour. Mara was sent to a convent, to be kept in reserve for the prince should her second sister die too. She never wanted to be a hero and doesn’t really enjoy being a princess. The quiet, gentle life with the church has rubbed off on her but when Mara sees the bruises on her sister’s wrist and the toll multiple pregnancies is taking on her, she knows she must act. She goes to the Dust Wife, a formidable sorceress, and requests help. Mara is set three impossible tasks to do in order to get her assistance and it’s surprising what stubbornness, desperation and patience can achieve. So, Mara sets out to save her sister’s life. The rest of the story follows her and the Dust Wife as they collect what they need to achieve this final impossible task.

My thoughts

I liked this book! It wasn’t very long and I really enjoyed the pace of it, we went from set up, to problem, to action at a fairly decent pace without any pointless set backs to delay the narrative. I liked that Mara was an imperfect hero for the task and not particularly good at a lot of stuff, it was more about how her kindness and determination meant others helped her on her way. Because it was an audio I listened to in bits and pieces over several days, I did find the story lien at the start, where it flashes from past to present, a little hard to follow but I do generally struggle with that more when I listen to audio books because I’m always doing something at the same time.

This is the second T.Kingfisher I’ve read and I really liked both, I think this is an author I will definitely keep reading more of.