Nettle & Bone

About Nettle & Bone

Nettle & Bone is a standalone dark fairy tale from T. Kingfisher, and it opens with a princess who is already past the happily-ever-after part — or rather, who has watched her older sister arrive at a version of it that is clearly not happy. The prince her sister married is hurting her. Marra, the youngest princess, the one who was never meant to do anything heroic, decides that this cannot continue. What Marra decides to do about it is not rush to the castle with a sword. She goes to find a way to kill a prince who is magically protected against death by royal blood. To do that, she must complete three impossible tasks: make a cloak of nettles, build a dog from bones, and catch moonlight in a jar. These tasks are not metaphorical. Kingfisher takes them completely seriously and makes them genuinely difficult, which is part of what makes this book work. The companions Marra accumulates along the way — a gravewitch, a demon-dog constructed from assembled bones, a dust-wife with her own agenda — form one of Kingfisher's best found-family arrangements. They are not a fellowship of heroes. They are a collection of peculiar people with specific skills and limited social polish, and they are not going to succeed at anything through force of arms. They are going to succeed, if they do, through cleverness and willingness to do things that are uncomfortable. The darkness in Nettle & Bone is specific and purposeful. Kingfisher is writing about domestic abuse — about how a kingdom chooses not to see it, about how family members rationalize it, about the particular loneliness of a woman whose situation is technically legal. None of this is stated in those terms. It's embedded in the story's bones. The tone, despite all of this, is frequently funny. The demon-dog is wonderful. The gravewitch is drily practical. The ending earns its grim satisfaction without sentimentality. Nettle & Bone is Kingfisher at her most controlled — dark where it needs to be, witty where it can be, and structured with real care.

Tropes & Themes