I recall, when I was younger, I once turned to magic. I was told it’s a common practice of young women, a way of seizing power in a world in which women are often powerless. It’s a phase girls go through, like being keen on horses or boy bands.
My infatuation with commanding the supernatural was brief, the reality of having to buy my own candles in different colors and silver knives with ivory wands snuffing out the desire like a bucket of icy water thrown on a poorly lit campfire. Seriously, did these people think I was made of money?!?
But the yearning of seizing power that will protect fragile female flesh from the forces of darkness remains. Any female who has ever been the target of unwanted male attention—the intrusive stares; the negative commentary; the lewd suggestions; the leers; the shouts about our dress, our bodies, our expressions—knows that constant fear and sudden flare of rage that makes us want to hurl blazing fire into our aggressor’s face.
So the novel’s prologue paints a familiar scene, limns a sullen reality that women know all too well and that most men never grasp. It’s a remarkable piece of writing that launches us into a world where females are eager to seize that promised force, one that is kept from men, one that is supposed to keep them safe. But what happens when that defense (like rape whistles, pepper sprays, keys wielded like brass knuckles) fails to deliver on that promise?
The next chapter is more opaque, less straightforward. We are thrust into the world of a girl living on the outskirts of society, one making her way by pretense, snatched food, petty theft, practiced social invisibility and the skill of a huntress. Emer thus immediately captures the attention and rouses questions in the minds of the reader? Who is she? Why did she have to flee her home? Why does she hide, of all places, within the walls and luxurious grounds of a prestigious school? Why does she collect ancient language translations of the words “blood”, “hate”, “vengeance”?
As for the chapter after that—the tale of a young woman eager to get out of a deal made with a demon is familiar enough to pique the interest, no?
The opening chapters are filled with sharp divides between contrasts: civilization/nature, day/night, cleanliness/filth, science/magic, family/outcasts, men/women. It’s startling, original and, at times, deeply disturbing. Three very different women sear their fictional lives into your eyes as they struggle to carve out a place in a world that doesn’t fit them and use forbidden magic to do so. It’s the stuff of legend. It’s the whispers of dark magic that only women have access to and it’s the force that cleaves flesh from bone and the stars from the skies.
My infatuation with commanding the supernatural was brief, the reality of having to buy my own candles in different colors and silver knives with ivory wands snuffing out the desire like a bucket of icy water thrown on a poorly lit campfire. Seriously, did these people think I was made of money?!?
But the yearning of seizing power that will protect fragile female flesh from the forces of darkness remains. Any female who has ever been the target of unwanted male attention—the intrusive stares; the negative commentary; the lewd suggestions; the leers; the shouts about our dress, our bodies, our expressions—knows that constant fear and sudden flare of rage that makes us want to hurl blazing fire into our aggressor’s face.
So the novel’s prologue paints a familiar scene, limns a sullen reality that women know all too well and that most men never grasp. It’s a remarkable piece of writing that launches us into a world where females are eager to seize that promised force, one that is kept from men, one that is supposed to keep them safe. But what happens when that defense (like rape whistles, pepper sprays, keys wielded like brass knuckles) fails to deliver on that promise?
The next chapter is more opaque, less straightforward. We are thrust into the world of a girl living on the outskirts of society, one making her way by pretense, snatched food, petty theft, practiced social invisibility and the skill of a huntress. Emer thus immediately captures the attention and rouses questions in the minds of the reader? Who is she? Why did she have to flee her home? Why does she hide, of all places, within the walls and luxurious grounds of a prestigious school? Why does she collect ancient language translations of the words “blood”, “hate”, “vengeance”?
As for the chapter after that—the tale of a young woman eager to get out of a deal made with a demon is familiar enough to pique the interest, no?
The opening chapters are filled with sharp divides between contrasts: civilization/nature, day/night, cleanliness/filth, science/magic, family/outcasts, men/women. It’s startling, original and, at times, deeply disturbing. Three very different women sear their fictional lives into your eyes as they struggle to carve out a place in a world that doesn’t fit them and use forbidden magic to do so. It’s the stuff of legend. It’s the whispers of dark magic that only women have access to and it’s the force that cleaves flesh from bone and the stars from the skies.