I love T. Kingfisher and this quirky, sad, delightful, very full short story just gives me another look into this author's brilliant mind.

As you may know, Kingfisher writes horror and fantasy(particularly fairytale-ish fantasy). This is a sleeping beauty retelling that basically flips the Disney version many of us grew up with on its head. A fairy godmother unlike any I've seen before and a princess who is not so sugar sweet.

The main character, a swampy toadish foundling, is protecting a tower surrounded by knife like thorns and brambles. But is she keeping people out? Or keeping something in? When she meets a knight who is charming and quite apologetic for his idiosyncrasies, she realizes how much the world has changed and possibly not all for the worse.

I can't recommend this enough!!!

Out August 15, 2023!

Thank you, Netgalley and Publisher, for this Arc!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I would like to preface this review by saying I'm not usually much of a novella girlie. When I read a story, I want a nice, fully formed, long form story, you know? I will, however, make an exception for this novella, because It delivered in less than 150 pages what many thicker books have not: a great plot, characters with heart, and just enough whimsy peppered throughout, and I do love a good subverted fairytale retelling. The main character, Toadling, is probably one of my new favorites, as I can relate to her on so many levels (feeling incompetent, wanting to spend life wallowing as a toad, getting sidetracked by thoughts and tangents... I could go on.) While this story is nicely self-contained, would I be mad at seeing more Toadling stories? Absolutely not. Bring them on, I say!

T Kingfisher never misses. Always an insta buy author for me. This is not your typical fairytale and was the perfect novella length to devour in one sitting. 5 stars i loved it with my whole heart!

Kingfisher knows how to write a story.

I really enjoyed my time reading Thornhedge, I enjoyed the world and the characters. The reason why this one wasn’t a higher rating for me was just because I wasn’t able to connect with any of the characters.

What a bold, memorable story packed into such a tiny book. This dark fairy tale was perfect from start to finish. It has all the elements I love from kingfisher - unique and interesting characters, dark elements, humor and heart. This was a strong five star read for me. I didn’t want it to end!

Taken from her family and raised by the fairies, Toadling is such a charming character. She's innocent and a bit naïve, but determined to fulfill her given task no matter what goes wrong along the way. An endearing character trying to correct a mistake with a great deal of effort and a curse. I loved the magic in this, fueled by water and described as a physical thing.

Surprisingly sweet, even with some of the creepier fae activity. The part of faerieland we get to see was unique and the glimpse into the other fae relations kept up how mischievous faries are known to be. I expected the ending to be a little more climactic than it was, but ultimately I was not disappointed with how things wrapped up. A unique take on Sleeping Beauty, this story flips the roles of good and evil.

Overall, I had a wonderful time reading this and definitely recommend for a cozy fantasy and a fresh take on a familiar fairy tale.

I received an e-ARC of this via Netgalley.

A retelling of Sleeping Beauty, but not one you're expecting.

Toadling is a changeling raised in faerie by child-eating fish monsters (as Kingfisher writes in the acknowledgements); she's not very skilled beyond being able to transform between human and toad, but she has a job to do.

The sleeping girl in the castle is a killer. Toadling has done her best to prevent her from harming, doing what is asked and trying not to be a bother to anyone. For hundreds of years.

Halim is a knight, but not a very good one. He's a third son. He apologizes every times he swears, and he loves stories as much as he loves his mother. So much so, that he arrives at a castle tower surrounded by a hedge of thorns, and starts talking to Toadling, trying to learn her story, and the story of the sleeper within.

At the core of a story about being raised by monsters to guard a monster and prevent that monster from hurting others, is an incredibly sweet friendship between two people who have rarely had choices before trying to figure out their own paths forward.

Highly recommended.

This is exactly what I've come to expect and love in Kingfisher's books.

I prefer going in blind and being completely thrown as events unfold - this was no different!

Kingfisher has great characters, enough description, and a constantly moving plot, all packed into less than 300 (sometimes less than 200) pages. It is truly outstanding how the author balances it all.

I have found that Kingifhser writes great characters, with sarcasm and wit and humour coming off the page. Kingfisher draws you in with a quirky story and makes you eager to find out what happens.

Thornhedge was fine, but I was waiting for it to be great. This was an intriguing premise for a retelling and the execution was fine, but I expected more, honestly.

Another T Kingfisher book that I’m sure so many people are excited about. This is a novella centered on the story of sleeping beauty but turned inside out. Instead of following Aurora, we are following the faerie who curses her and is actually protecting the world from the horror that whatever sleeping beauty is and has been guarding the tower all alone for hundreds of years. It’s a story that questions who the monster actually is. It's dark and gorgeous but also warm and fuzzy because there's a knight who is very wholesome and sweet. A fantastic read.

*happy sigh*

I’m always happy to have a new Kingfisher book to read. Yet I am sad that it was only a novella, as I will always want more from this author.

Poor Toadling. She’s treated like less than for doing her job. Humans look down upon her for going above and beyond. But she’s kind and caring, despite her job being impossible sometimes. She’s doing the best she’s able.

Then, the years of loneliness were palpable. My heart broke for her in her isolation and lack of humans to keep her company. I loved Halim and his steady presence. I loved his flaws because they matched what Toadling thought were her flaws.

I adore this take on a classic fairytale. In a style unique to the author, she has taken the fairytale and tossed it on its head. I do hope she will consider revisiting this down the road and perhaps making it into a series.

This was an interesting short story that I wish there was a fully fledged novel to. I would love to know where these two characters end up together and the adventures they go on. It was a very quick read with some interesting tid bits about time flowing and one little fey creature.

Such a sweet little monster...

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher (AKA Ursula Vernon) is an inside-out Sleeping Beauty retelling. The hero of the story is a little fairy called Toadling, so called because she can turn into a toad at will. As the book begins, she is guarding a sleeper in a tower hidden in a forest of thorns. She has been doing this for over two hundred years, and she has deterred many people from the tower. As this statement should make clear, the beginning of the book is not the beginning of Toadling's story. The book begins with the arrival of a sympathetic and friendly knight at the thorn forest. We do eventually learn the whole of Toadling's story.

I loved this little story. Kingfisher has this to say about how she wrote it

Once I had Toadling, the whole thing just flowed...
It was really very sweet, and so if someone asked me about Thornhedge, I would probably say that it is a sweet book, and then presumably someone would point out that the heroine is raised by child-eating fish monsters and the villain is torturing people and animating the dead, and I would be left flailing my hands around and saying, “But it’s sweet! Really!” because I am not always the best at judging the tone of my own work.
...I still think it’s sweet, dammit.

It IS! A sweet little book that you can read in less than two hours. I loved it.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor for an advance reader copy of Thornhedge. This review expresses my honest opinion. Release date 15-August-2023.

Fantastic fairytale retelling by T. Kingfisher. I could not put it down and like many of her works it is both sweet and creepy at the same time. I loved it.

Thornhedge is a short novella that takes the tale of Sleepy Beauty and adds a new twist. I love new twists on fairy tales and after reading Alix Harrow’s Fractured Fables, I was curious to read Kingfisher’s take on this fairy tale. The story follows Toadling who was raised by faeries and sent to the human world to give a blessing to a newborn child. Events happen and Toadling ends up hiding out in a bramble-covered tower. Eventually a knight, Halim, comes to investigate the legend of the tower. The two end up interacting and a quest to break the curse begins. As this story is about 120 pages and seems to be a standalone, it is a quick and interesting read.

With the story on the shorter side, there is a lot that needs to be accomplished. The characters, world, and story all need to be established and the reader needs to connect to everything. For me, I felt the plot and characters were a little more established than the world, but I do realize that there is only so much that can be done in a small space. The timeline is non-linear as pieces from the past are used to help establish some backstory. Many of the smaller details the reader discovers as the story moves forward so everything seemed to naturally come together. Other elements, though, did not feel as natural as the story needed to hit certain points to make sense in a short amount of time. There was more showing than telling, which I did enjoy. The characters were all likable in their own ways and I liked their development from start to finish. Overall, I enjoyed this story and hope this develops into a series as there are a lot of directions to take this unique version of fairy tales.

**I give a special thank you to Netgalley and the publisher, Tor Books, for the opportunity to read this entertaining novel. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.**

I love every fantasy book t kingfisher writes. This story has quirky, adorable characters that you will love. A retelling of sleeping beauty from villains pov.

A twist on a fairytale, seeing the thorns protecting the people outside of them rather than within. Overall another totally amazing and beautiful story by Kingfisher.

In Thornhedge we're introduced to Toadling. Toadling is stuck guarding a place that is hidden by thorns. She has been there for a long time and watched the world shift around her. When she was a baby, she was snatched from her human life and replaced by a Changeling. Raised in the world of the fae creatures she is not your normal human. And because she isn't a normal fae creature a spell gone wrong has bound her to the responsibility of watching the maiden in the tower.

One of the things that I love about T. Kingfisher is her talent for subverting the fairy tale that we know. It echos the darker version while also bringing a modern eye to the narrative. This is not your average maiden in the tower story and the curse may not be there as a curse.

I thought Toadling was an interesting character. Being raised by aquatic beings it was interesting to see how she had been shaped by that. From things as simple as the ability to take toad form to her fondness for water and a sense of the beautiful.

I am always impressed with how much T. Kingfisher can accomplish in such a short span. Giving me a complete satisfy narrative without prolonging it.

Thornhedge is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty. In it, a young fairy named Toadling is tasked to protect the sleeping place of a princess. After two centuries of no one finding the castle or investigating the hedge and the brambles around it, a knight arrives, sending Toadling into a panic. (She had mostly been hoping that the story about the cursed castle had been forgotten. No such luck! Our Girl is not the bookish sort, having been raised by greenteeth, a type of predatory water fairy--who somehow raised Toadling to be an absolute cinnamon roll of a Protagonist. It does not occur to her that the story might have been written down. The knight--who is the bookish sort--found out about the mysterious cursed castle from a book.)

Being T. Kingfisher, this is not a straightforward retelling of the fairytale. The sleeping princess really has more in common with the child character in the movie The Bad Seed than with Aurora, for starters. The story of how Toadling was given the task of being the princess' fairy godmother and how everything goes swiftly downhill from there is interspersed with Toadling's interactions with the knight, a very nice young man named Halim. (Some fun worldbuilding--I'm pretty sure this is an alternate history as there are multiple knightly orders for various religions, including pagan apparently. Halim is a Muslim which causes some awkward exchanges because Toadling's information about Muslims is kind of out of date or just plain wrong. Halim is a Good Kid and seems to regard it as a "one in ten thousand" moment.)

Thornhedge manages to be charming and strangely sweet, even when the Protagonist was raised by child-eating fairies and the Antagonist is actually kind of scary for an eight year old sleeping princess. (How, how did the Protagonist get raised by scary water fairies and turn out to be a complete cinnamon roll? Specifically, how do scary water fairies with only a very vague-according-to-narrative maternal instincts be such good parents in comparison to the king and queen, who love their daughter but are not able help her any more than Toadling was able to--and Toadling definitely wanted to despite everything, which makes the story kind of sad in a way.) This book was a fast and entertaining read with lots of heart and engaging characters. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and highly recommend it.

This review was based off of a galley copy received from NetGalley.

Mixed feelings about this one...I'm a HUGE T. Kingfisher fan so I might have gone in with too high of expectations, especially knowing that I'm not a big fan of novellas. Of course, the writing is gorgeous and the setting was perfect for a gothic fairytale, it just left me wanting more. It's also a pretty bleak story with none of T. Kingfisher's usual humor to offset it.

I did love our main character though. Toadling is a human who was switched at birth and now lives as a fairy who can shift in and out of toad form. She was tasked with keeping mortals safe from the changeling that took her place and is now sleeping in a tower. When a knight comes hoping to rescue a fair maiden, she must convince him not to break the curse.

Premise is very interesting but I was hoping for a different ending and, knowing the history behind changelings, more nuance in how that topic was handled.