As an older sister with a younger brother who I would genuinely combust on the spot for, Violeta and Arien immediately hit a soft spot for me. Sweet little boy and his sister who would do anything to protect him stuck in a house with a violent mother on the brink of insanity. I understand it, I feel for them so deeply that reading through the first chapter made my face fall into a frown near immediately. The tension is written impeccably well in this book and the imagery is gorgeously dripping with both the dark and light tones which the book is clearly meant to be playing with. The contrast of Violeta's garden full of sunflowers and her dark outlook on her own life being dispensable for Arien's safety compared to Arien's soft personality and frightening powers (?). The description of this child with black eyes with a voice which warps into something else, hands stained black in pure shadow, is bone-achingly scary to me.
The scenes with the Mother, her frenzied and cold actions coupled with the soft manipulative touch, are genuinely eerie and made me uncomfortable — exactly as they were supposed to. When she forced Arien's hand over the fire, it made me feel sick to my stomach. That is how effective the writing and the scene-setting is, I was completely enraptured. The line "Once marked, the Lord Under knows your name" is so delicious, I read it over multiple times to feel the depth of it. The story is swimming in such horror (familicide and abuse in the first two chapters..) that it is really hard to pull away from.
The mystery coating the world is also absolutely addictive — what are these shadows plaguing Arien? Are they something stemming from anguish? Can he really control him? How is it that Violeta is able to fight them off? What are the stories of the Lord and Lady? Why did Lord Sylvanan kill his whole family?
The scenes with the Mother, her frenzied and cold actions coupled with the soft manipulative touch, are genuinely eerie and made me uncomfortable — exactly as they were supposed to. When she forced Arien's hand over the fire, it made me feel sick to my stomach. That is how effective the writing and the scene-setting is, I was completely enraptured. The line "Once marked, the Lord Under knows your name" is so delicious, I read it over multiple times to feel the depth of it. The story is swimming in such horror (familicide and abuse in the first two chapters..) that it is really hard to pull away from.
The mystery coating the world is also absolutely addictive — what are these shadows plaguing Arien? Are they something stemming from anguish? Can he really control him? How is it that Violeta is able to fight them off? What are the stories of the Lord and Lady? Why did Lord Sylvanan kill his whole family?