I have to admit, the gorgeous cover for this book was what gripped me and made me pick it up. (I suppose that’s what the cover is meant to do though, right?) But the immersive world-building, fast-paced plot and badass main character was what kept me in the book and made me want to keep reading. I LOVED this book. I haven’t read anything like it for a long time. I love anything with fairytale vibes, so this was perfect, but I wasn’t expecting the Aladdin-esque settings and the mythology that the author took inspiration from, after reading the Author’s Note.
I wrote a Medusa retelling a few years ago, about a MC called Farah-Rose who was a descendant of Medusa herself, but also with Midas’s heritage in there as well. So she had both the ability to turn people to gold and to stone, with her eyes and her touch. But she was held captive by an evil emperor and used for her magic. That book has been shelved, but I loved writing it, so when I read this book, I think it gave me a sweet little flashback into the kind of stories I personally love to write.
This book is about a Princess called Soraya, who has always been isolated in her part of the palace as a result of a curse caused by a mistake her mother made when she was young. Soraya’s skin is poisonous to touch, as her mother discovered when a wet nurse picked her up and was killed. So the people who care for her avoid her, and although she lives in luxury, never wanting for anything, she misses being able to do all of the things her brother, the heir, does. She misses running around in the palace and playing with her twin brother and the girl he is now going to marry (she emphasises that she was always careful not to touch any of them, always wearing gloves), and hates being alone like this. She knows the story of her mother’s deal with a demon, how she made a mistake with one of their people and was cursed as a result, but when she begins to learn that her mother is hiding the true reason why Soraya is poisonous, and that it was her mother’s fault, she’s angry and hurt and betrays them by putting out the sacred fire that fuels her brother’s magic, protecting him from the demonkind. She makes a few other bad choices along the way that have awful consequences for her family, including making deals with a captive demon in the palace’s dungeons.
There is a lot more world building going on that will explain everything in more detail, so you’ll understand more about the reasons for Soraya’s decisions that way.
I loved that the book is sapphic, and that Soraya’s decisions show us how diverse she is as a character. Definitely recommend giving this one a go!
April Grace 