#Titanuary ‘Thornhedge’ by T.Kingfisher

About the book…

Thornhedge is the tale of a kind-hearted, toad-shaped heroine, a gentle knight, and a mission gone completely sideways.

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?

But nothing with fairies is ever simple.

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…

Published in late 2023 in a glorious hardcover, this novella is absolutely spellbinding!

A twist on a fairy tale that you would never expect, this is the tale of Toadling, a faerie changeling sent back to the world of humans to impart a gift, a child, a quest that goes horribly wrong…

Or does it?

Toadling will completely capture your heart, her stubborness and fearlessness is so endearing and wonderful , and she takes this quest on with no thoughts for her own safety at all.

The melding of fairy lore, and this fabulous new variation on a tale we *think* we know, is just masterful, it’s what T.Kingfisher does so very well. She presents the hedge as a barrier which is both literal and metaphorical, why does a prince need to have a square jaw and be white,for example? What defines our perception of a princess, or, indeed, a happy ever after? A gift can be a curse if you just looked at it from a slightly different angle…

She manages to fit in a very short length novella, a whole world and hundreds of years of history whilst making it feel like a soft sigh of a breath on the nape of your neck.

‘Thornhedge’ may be able to be read in about an hour , but the place it occupies in your soul is easily so much bigger!

About the author…
T. Kingfisher is the vaguely absurd pen-name of Ursula Vernon. In another life, she writes children’s books and weird comics, and has won the Hugo, Sequoyah, and Ursa Major awards, as well as a half-dozen Junior Library Guild selections.
This is the name she uses when writing things for grown-ups.
When she is not writing, she is probably out in the garden, trying to make eye contact with butterflies.
Twitter @UrsulaV @TitanBooks