THORNHEDGE BY T. KINGFISHER

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

THORNHEDGE | T. KINGFISHER
NOT ALL CURSES SHOULD BE BROKEN

A retelling of “Sleeping Beauty”, but what if the princess was the villain?

The Premise
At the heart of this story is Toadling, a small, toad-shaped fairy-touched woman who has spent two hundred years guarding a hedge of thorns around a ruined tower. Inside that tower sleeps a princess. Everyone who passes by assumes they know this story already.
They don't.
Toadling isn't the villain of someone else's fairy tale. She's the one who put the thorns there in the first place, and she has very good reasons for never wanting anyone to wake what's sleeping inside.

The Dance Between the Knight and Toadling
This is where the book truly shines, and where I found myself the most invested.
A knight named Halim stumbles into Toadling's centuries-long vigil, and what unfolds between them is absolutely lovely. He's not handsome in any dramatic or sweeping way. He’s a little hollow-cheeked, a little broke, very fond of his mother, and he apologizes when he swears. (Sounds swoony to me!) He's curious about Toadling in a way that isn't predatory or possessive. He just... wants to know her.
Watching the two of them circle each other—her wariness, his patience, the slow unspooling of trust—was genuinely the heart of the book for me. Every scene between them, I wanted more.

Where It Lost a Little Steam
I have to be honest: the flashbacks and backstory sections, while necessary to understand who Toadling is and how she ended up guarding the hedge, slowed the momentum down for me. I found myself wanting to get back to the present, back to the fire-lit conversations between her and Halim, rather than lingering in the past.
It's not that the backstory is poorly written. T. Kingfisher's prose is gorgeous throughout, and Toadling's history with the greenteeth who raised her is genuinely strange and affecting. I just kept feeling the pull back toward the dance happening in the present.

My Rating: 4/5
For me, 5 stars means I can't stop thinking about a book for a week, and I'd recommend it to absolutely everyone without hesitation. Thornhedge didn't quite hit that bar, but 4 stars, for me, means I really enjoyed the ride. It was pleasurable, start to finish, and the central relationship alone made it worth every page.

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