Friday, March 6, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Thornbound by Stephanie Burgis




Thornbound is the second book in Stephanie Burgis' "Harwood Spellbook", her romantic fantasy series.  I really enjoyed the rest of the series - I naturally started with the novella that follows this book first (Moontangled) and then the prequel novella and then finally the first book in the series, so I've gotten the order all jumbled up but I've enjoyed it all nonetheless.  The result of my weird reading order is that I was a decent amount spoiled as to what was going to happen in Thornbound going in, but I still had good hopes I'd enjoy it.

And Thornbound is enjoyable, but it suffers from the recurrence of a really annoying trope to diminish my enjoyment a good bit (and that trope is made far more obvious if you're already spoiled).  Our lead character remains excellent except for that trope, and Burgis does a great job with the plot subverting the usual gender roles while also bringing in classic concerns at the same time, so it's still a very solid short novel.  Still I look forward to Burgis continuing in this series, where I have no more opportunity to have my enjoyment lessened by spoilers.


-----------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------------
Cassandra Harwood has spent the past few months working on her new plans for her future: the opening of the Thornfell College of Magic, a school for young women to learn magic as she once did.  While her husband has been called away from their marriage bed right from the start, she has been jumping through every hoop necessary to start her school to give young women in Angland the chance to learn magic, and finally, the first class of students is ready to arrive.

But just as Cassandra thought the troubles were over, she gets news that the Boudiccate - the ruling women of Angland - are sending a last minute inspection team to the school with the power to shut everything down.  Even worse, the inspection team contains not only a former family friend recently turned enemy, but the spiteful woman who made Cassandra's childhood a living hell.  And when one of her students discovers signs that someone has made a bargain with a powerful Fey, with the power to use the thorns themselves to wreak havoc, Cassandra knows that it will take all of her wits, all of her drive, and the help of her family to somehow manage to keep everything from going horribly horribly wrong.
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Thornbound is the second full novel in Burgis' interesting magical and genderflipped version of England (Angland), which Burgis really plays with quite well.  Women aren't supposed to be mages....because they're supposed to be rulers, and magic is meant for emotional men, rather than the other way around.  It's a gendered world for sure, but the gender roles are not what you'd expect, and much of the story features Burgis using this subversion to still deal with things that are very recognizable.

For so much of this book is Cassandra fighting against the gender roles - promoting the study of magic in women - and having other people critique her for it, for fear of what might come of removing the rigid gender norms.  And in a very familiar fashion, much of the criticism comes from people blaming Cassandra for the consequences of her actions....except those consequences are the results of the critics, not Cassandra.  Blaming a woman what society does in response to her speaking out should be very familiar at this point, and Cassandra, who is struggling with everything as it is, has a hard time with it, but eventually with help overcomes it with grace.

It's helped that both Cassandra and her husband are such perfect matches for each other - each willing to sacrifice everything for each other to the point where they repeatedly need to have conversations about how neither of them should have to sacrifice themselves.   And Cassandra's family, from her politician half-sister Amy to her historian Jonathan, remain comforting allies to read about (a family so loving is great to read honestly) and the young women Cassandra teaches get some nice moments, if only cameos other than the already established Ms. Banks.  They all help make the plot generally enjoyable as Cassandra desperately tries to adapt to crisis after crisis and to find out what is really going on.

Annoyingly, this book repeats the same plot point of the heroine not telling her family members about the situation and thus prolonging the conflict/mystery because she doesn't get their input.  After the last book, where a big lesson for Cassandra was her learning not to do things on her own when her family would always have her back, it's a really annoying trope to see repeated here, especially as it's the only reason the conflict in question is prolonged.  Given how short this novel is, it's kind of distracting and annoying to see how prominent this trope is (and was made worse for me since my spoilered knowledge made this trope really obvious from the start).

Still, Thornbound is very enjoyable, and if you're not spoiled, and coming straight from Snowspelled, you'll enjoy it quite a bit I think.  I read this as an audiobook, and it's well worth it in that format too: short and sweet.
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