marra, our protagonist, the youngest princess of the harbor kingdom, grew up in a convent and has two self-described skills: embroidery and weeding.

this rollicking feminist fairy tale is filled with redemption, community and courage, its dark passages the road to a satisfyingly uplifting endgame. But, as is the way in tales of princes, witches, and daughters, the impossible is only the beginning.Marra adored her beautiful and gentle oldest sister Damia who would allow her to curl up in her bed when she was lonely, but her sister Kania who was closer in age seemed to actually despise the youngest Princess. Seeking help from a powerful gravewitch, Marra is offered the tools to kill a prince-if she can complete three impossible tasks.

It takes Marra some time to get going and decide that she has to deal with things herself but once she does she won’t be deterred by anything. At the second part: new team members join their road trip: including a chicken: possessed by demon, a reluctant fairy god mother, a disgraced knight named Fenris ( sweet romance alert) Let’s not forget the dust-wife is very powerful graveyard witch who can make meaningful chats with ghosts. I must confess that when I first started it, I didn't know what to think of how the plot was developing. It won the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Novel and was nominated for the 2023 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, and the Nebula Award for Best Novel of 2022.All I can say is I had a great time reading this one, cackling throughout, and hope that people will try this bizarre little book for themselves. For me it was not enough of either thing, and had a lot of questing and journeying through the middle which I found less compelling. There are always fine bits of humor and multi-faceted characters chasing well thought out actions and challenges. Kingfisher’s combination of comedy with feminist rage in a complex fairytale setting makes for a wholly entertaining read. Marra enjoys her life there as she has more power and freedom as a nun than as a princess of the realm.

Caitlyn Paxson, writing for National Public Radio, noted that Kingfisher draws tropes from a variety of different fairy tales (including Bluebeard, The Six Swans, and Goblin Market), rather than sticking closely to one particular template. There is a bit of a love story as well, but it is quite understated and does not take over from the main plot. She wondered about the harper in the song, and what he had thought when he was building the harp of a dead woman’s bones. Because as Marra learns while at her sister's bed during her niece's birth, Prince McEvil enjoys hurting his wives. We first meet Marra digging in a pile of bones left by local cannibals so she can find enough pieces to build a bone dog.I feel that it take considerable skill to negotiate that line between the light and dark successfully. Princess teams up with a motley crew of companions, on a mission to save her sister from her vile husband. I really enjoyed going on a murder trip with this absolutely unhinged band of idiots, but even more so I adored the setting: I could've wandered the eerie forest grounds and the goblin market and the peculiar castle with its labyrinthine catacombs for an interminable amount of time and the dark magic seeping through the pages would've been enough to keep me trapped inside the confines of this world, entirely too enraptured to notice anything going on outside of it. This book dragged from the first chapter, which is not something I think I've ever experienced before.

Thus, the task belongs to Marra and the dust-wife, two "grouchy older women who have determinedly set out to right wrongs".A delightful solitary story (as far as I’m aware this is not sprawling into a series or shared universe) about a kind princess in an unkind world.