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Fantasy-Hive

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BlogExcerpts
Home›Blog›THORNHEDGE by T. Kingfisher (EXCERPT)

THORNHEDGE by T. Kingfisher (EXCERPT)

By Bethan Hindmarch
August 18, 2023
678
0

To celebrate the publication of T. Kingfisher’s beautiful bewitching story Thornhedge this week, we’re excited to share an excerpt with you!

 

There’s a princess trapped in a tower. This isn’t her story.

Meet Toadling. On the day of her birth, she was stolen from her family by the fairies, but she grew up safe and loved in the warm waters of faerieland. Once an adult though, the fae ask a favor of Toadling: return to the human world and offer a blessing of protection to a newborn child. Simple, right?

If only.

Centuries later, a knight approaches a towering wall of brambles, where the thorns are as thick as your arm and as sharp as swords. He’s heard there’s a curse here that needs breaking, but it’s a curse Toadling will do anything to uphold…

 

 

Our Women in SFF interview with T. Kingfisher | Beth’s review of Thornhedge

 

Thornhedge is out now from Titan Books. You can order your copy on Bookshop.org

 


EXCERPT

In the early days, the wall of thorns had been distressingly obvious. There was simply no way to hide a hedge with thorns like sword blades and stems as thick as a man’s thigh. A wall like that invited curiosity and with curiosity came axes, and it was all the fairy could do to keep some of those curious folk from gaining entrance to the tower.

Eventually, though, the brambles had grown up around the edges—blackberry and briar and dog rose, all the weedy opportunists—and that softened the edge of the thorn wall and gave the fairy some breathing room. Roving princes and penniless younger sons had been fascinated by the thorns, which were so obviously there to keep people out. Hardly anybody was interested in a bramble thicket.

It helped, too, that the land around the thorns became inhospitable. It was nothing so obvious as a desert, but wells ran dry practically as soon as they had been dug, and rain passed through the soil as if it were sand instead of loam. That was the fairy’s doing, too, though she regretted the necessity.

The fairy was the greenish-tan color of mushroom stems and her skin bruised blue-black, like mushroom flesh. She had a broad, frog-like face and waterweed hair. She was neither beautiful nor made of malice, as many of the Fair Folk are said to be.

Mostly she was fretful and often tired.

“How do they know?” she asked miserably. “Everyone who knew her should be dead of old age by now—them and their children, too! Their grandchildren should be gray-haired. How do they even remember there’s a tower here?”

She was talking, more or less, to a white wagtail, a little bird that liked short grass and pumped its tail constantly as it walked. Wagtails were not so clever as rooks or jackdaws or carrion crows, but the fairy liked them. They did not make fun of her like the crows would, nor carry tales the way that the rooks did.
The wagtail scurried closer, pumping its tail up and down.

“They must be telling stories,” said the fairy hopelessly. “About a princess in a tower and a hedge of thorns to keep the princes out.”

 

TagsBlogexcerptExcerptsT. KingfisherThornhedgeTitan Books

Bethan Hindmarch

Down on the South West coast of Wales is a woman juggling bookselling, reading, writing and parenting. Maybe if she got her arse off Twitter for long enough, Beth might actually get more done. Surrounded by rugged coastline, dramatic castles and rolling countryside, Beth loves nothing more than shutting her door on all that and curling up with a cuppa and a book instead. Her favourite authors include Jen Williams, Anna Stephens and Joe Abercrombie; her favourite castles include Kidwelly, Carreg Cennen and Pembroke.

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