This was WAAAAAY better than I expected. I have been burned off of fairy tale retellings
completely because they are almost universally lame, just like modernized or the names are changed or whatever, and
Twilight and
50 Shades have given me some weird juju about alpha males, so that whenever a dude throws a girl over his shoulder, LITERALLY or metaphorically, I get all flinchy.
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| No thx for that. |
But this is so rad. Nyx's dad makes a deal with the Gentle Lord, who lives in the castle and is master of demons and is a TRICKSTER, so the deal you make with him never turns out to be what you wanted. Anywer, in exchange for his wife bearing two healthy daughters, the Lord claims one of the daughters as his wife, but the dad forgets to include his wife surviving childbirth as part of the deal JOKE IS ON YOU.
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| It's a good joke. |
So the dad gets a dead wife and two daughters: one to love, and one to train up as an assassin (there are like four hearts: earth, air, water, fire, it's very Captain Planet, and you can draw sigils to activate or inactivate them, and if Nyx can find the four hearts of the castle she can bring the whole thing down...you know what, this part is completely unimportant except it gets her in and around the castle).
And duhhhhh she falls in love with the
beast demon lord
eventually, but it's complicated and conflicted and they spend a lot of time trying to free him from being the demon lord and there's another figure, a shadow in the demon lord's shape who gains 3D'ness in the night and is Nyx's ally and there is MYSTERY and COMPASSION and BETRAYAL, so much betrayal I love it.
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| Stab that back. |
It was very actiony and there was a lot of backstory almost becomes clear and people have feelings but then FORGET or are MAGICKED and I am like WHAT WHAT WHAAAAAT I want to know, I have to know.
So great, definitely gonna read
Crimson Bound.
