A Sorceress Comes to Call
Ratings3
Average rating4.5
15
Ratings3
Average rating4.5
From New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award-winning author T. Kingfisher comes A Sorceress Comes to Call--a dark reimagining of the Brothers Grimm's "The Goose Girl," rife with secrets, murder, and forbidden magic. *The hardcover edition features a foil stamp on the casing and custom endpapers illustrated by the author.* Cordelia knows her mother is . . . unusual. Their house doesn't have any doors between rooms--there are no secrets in this house--and her mother doesn't allow Cordelia to have a single friend. Unless you count Falada, her mother's beautiful white horse. The only time Cordelia feels truly free is on her daily rides with him. But more than simple eccentricity sets her mother apart. Other mothers don't force their daughters to be silent and motionless for hours, sometimes days, on end. Other mothers aren't evil sorcerers. After a suspicious death in their small town, Cordelia's mother insists they leave in the middle of the night, riding away together on Falada's sturdy back, leaving behind all Cordelia has ever known. They arrive at the remote country manor of a wealthy older man, the Squire, and his unwed sister, Hester. Cordelia's mother intends to lure the Squire into marriage, and Cordelia knows this can only be bad news for the bumbling gentleman and his kind, intelligent sister. And indeed Hester sees the way Cordelia shrinks away from her mother. How the young girl sits eerily still at dinner every night. Hester knows that to save her brother from bewitchment and to rescue the terrified Cordelia, she will have to face down a wicked witch of the worst kind. "Kingfisher never fails to dazzle."--Peter S. Beagle, Hugo-, Nebula-, and Locus-Award winning author of The Last Unicorn "Kingfisher is an inventive fantasy powerhouse."--BookPage Also by T. Kingfisher Nettle & Bone Thornhedge What Moves the Dead What Feasts at Night A House with Good Bones
Reviews with the most likes.
I knew I was going to love this book from the very beginning. Well, as long as it had a decent ending I would love it. It did not disappoint.
The themes about parental abuse and forced isolation really spoke to me. Cordelia was way braver and more bold than I’d expected of anyone who has been abused their whole life, but I loved it. It made it feel like there was hope for getting out of awful situations.
This book was doing so much. It was dark, and cozy, and charming. T. Kingfisher has a way of telling dark, horrible, terrifying stories in a way that feels almost cozy and charming. The middle part of this book reminded me a little of Pride and Prejudice, but then something would happen to remind me how dark and twisted this story actually was.
I love Heaster as a protagonist and I love that we have an older person as a main character in the story. I also love that Heaster kept referring to the sorceress as Doom in her head. She used the expectations of old people against the sorceress in the best way possible, and often in amusing ways.
Seeing from both Hester and Cordelia’s perspective really helped paint a better picture of what was going on. Cordelia is socially awkward and doesn’t know how to handle many of the situations thrust upon her, but she knows that her mother is a sorceress and she knows some of her mother’s plans. While Hester might not know everything that is going on, she has a much better grasp on the social dynamics than Cordelia. In addition, we get to see Cordelia’s awkwardness both from Cordelia herself, and from an outsider.
As painful as it was to see Cordelia try and often mess up in social situations, I also loved that she was finally getting out of the isolation she had grown up with. I also love the conflicted feelings Cordelia has when she meets another sorceress who is really nice to her. It forces Cordelia to see things from a perspective she might not have encountered otherwise.
The side characters are wonderful. Practically all of them felt very alive and real. We have so many fun characters to hang out with too!
Basically I loved everything about this book. It’s one of my favorite T. Kingfisher books, and one I will definitely be rereading.
SPOILERS!!!
Also Cordelia is definitely a sorceress too, but she doesn’t realize it. Aaaah!!
I’d like to thank both Netgalley and Tor Books, from whom I received an ARC of A Sorceress Comes to Call. These opinions are my own.
If you’re familiar with the story of The Goose Girl from the Brothers Grimm, you might recognize a name here, or a plot device there, but A Sorceress Comes to Call is very much a story of Kingfisher’s own design and it is absolutely brilliant. It’s intense, dark, and heart-wrenching, and Cordelia, the lonely and naive 14-year-old girl at the center of the story, was so easy to fall in love with.
But Cordelia isn’t the only star of the show. While trying to win the affection of a rich man, Cordelia’s mother, Evangeline, sees one of my favorite characters, Penelope, as competition. Penelope isn’t a traditional beauty, but everyone is mesmerized by her anyway because of her inner-beauty and confidence. It’s a stark contrast to the toxic and narcissistic behavior of Cordelia’s beautiful mother, Evangeline, who despises Penelope. I loved that Evangeline felt threatened by Penelope and witnessing how her fear evolved and twisted.
Towards the end of the book, when everything comes to a head, there’s some action that I found a bit confusing. The description of what was going on wasn’t good enough for me personally. In the end, I understood as much as the characters did, but I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t get a grasp on what was happening as it happened. It’s fully possible this is because of my inability to picture things, but obviously I can’t be sure.
There are so many plot points I wish I could comment on but I can’t do so without spoiling things! There are some twisty bits and some crazy parts and also there’s this one part where… ahhhh! Just read this book!
