Nettle & Bone

It has nettles AND bones! 

I found Nettle & Bone through BookTok when I started going down a cozy fantasy algorithm, though I don’t think I’d label this book as cozy. I set it’s beautiful cover on my TBR shelf where it sat for a couple of months. In early December I found myself in a reading slump, mainly because during my seeking of cozy fantasy titles I slowly started to realize how many of them lean heavily on the romance side of book genres. Romance is fine, I’m just not a person that needs it in every single story. At one point, in a whirling burst of frustrated energy, desperate to find a book I could lose myself in, I picked up Nettle & Bone, read the first two pages, and then immediately returned it to my TBR shelf.

Then a couple of weeks ago I decided to try a fun new way to pick what book to read next…. I’d let my tarot deck pick. I shuffled the deck, picked a card, and matched it to a book whose plot most closely resembled the essence of the card I drew basing it only on the short plot description on the back of the book. The first card I pulled was the 9 of Pentacles.

The 9 of Pentacles shows a beautiful woman. She is standing confidently in a garden, a bird perched upon her hand. This woman exudes self-reliance and success, so much so that she is in the perfect position to help those around her.

While no book is going to feature a character who has already reached their success and stability, I chose Nettle & Bone because the heroine, Marra, was a woman spared. After the death of the oldest daughter, Marra’s family, royalty in their land, send the second daughter to marry the prince in her place and Marra is sent to a convent as “safe keeping” should something happen and a third wife be needed. Once Marra discovers that the prince is abusive and will likely kill her sister, she sets off on an epic journey to kill the prince and safe her family.

It is a story about finding courage, being brave, understanding your worth and above all about the bonds we make with those we love. I am so glad that I didn’t let the first opening of the book be my last.

This book was beautifully written with memorable characters. It was my first T. Kingfisher book and Nettle & Bone has piqued my interest in reading more of her work.