I adored this retelling of Sleeping Beauty! My dear Toadling, I loved her so much, her story could have been so tragic and yet ends up so sweet.

T. Kingfisher's books have been on my reading list for a while now and I'm so glad to have read this as my first book of hers. I will be moving her other books to the top of my list.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor for making this available in exchange for an honest review!

T. Kingfisher did it again! I love all of her books, but her fairy tale novellas are my favorites. I really, really hope she continues to write them. Thornhedge may be my favorite thus far, though. I absolutely love Kingfisher's writing style, and I think it lends itself well to fairy-tale style writing. As soon as you start reading, you feel like you've been dropped into the world.
I also really appreciate how Kingfisher writes main characters who aren't your standard attractive young person. There are definitely reasons why people want to read about attractive people falling in love with other attractive people, but the strength of Kingfisher's writing means that you don't actually care that Toadling, well, looks like a toad.
Finally, the retelling itself is simply astounding. None of the Sleeping Beauty retellings I've read have ever gone into depth about the fairy world that the evil fairy came from. Kingfisher's depiction of the fairy realm seemed familiar and easy to sink into. The vagueness of the time period and location made the story seem all the more like a classic fairy tale. And I was absolutely not expecting the Sleeping Beauty to be a bloodthirsty and crazed little changeling!

I have yet to meet a Kingfisher book I don’t like! Such a charming and sweet, yet dark, read. This is a reimagining of Sleeping Beauty and very well done. Kingfisher took the bones of a familiar fairy tale and made it completely her own. I fell in love with Toadling and Halim, two unconventional character types we don’t often often get to read about. At just under 130 pages, it made for a very fast read. I suppose if I had a complaint, it’d be that I was left wanting more. Kingfisher’s other two novellas left me far more satisfied so I know she’s capable of it. Overall though, it was a very enjoyable read and one that I would definitely recommend to other fans of fairy tale novellas.

5/5 stars
Recommended if you like: retellings, Sleeping Beauty, fairytales, Fair Folk, T. Kingfisher

This review has been posted to Netgalley as of 2/12 and will be posted to my book review blog 2/15 and to Instagram 3/15.

Welcome to a Sleeping Beauty retelling where the sleeping princess is not only not the main character, she's not even a good character. I liked this take on the fairytale and how complicated everything was. While it's somewhat similar in concept to The Sleeper and the Spindle, it takes it in a different direction and it was interesting to see how the situation evolved over time.

I liked Toadling and the way she viewed the world. She had an utter love for the 'monsters' that raised her and her view of beauty was entirely based on what she saw in her mothers and sisters, though she was also aware of human standards of beauty as well. We get to see different aspects of Toadling throughout the book as well and get to understand both how she handles different situations and how she ended up where she is in the 'present.' I do wish we got to see more of Toadling with her family since the descriptions were phenomenal and I really wanted to enjoy more pond/mud/toad settings and magic.

Halim is a knight who is...not so great at being a knight. That is to say, he's a knight but he isn't interested in doing tournaments or fighting other people, though he does have the 'saving maidens' part down. I liked his character a lot, in part because he has a natural curiosity about things, but mostly because he's got such a matter-of-fact way of looking at things and has some of the funnier lines in the book.

The book is told in a semi-nonlinear fashion, beginning with the present and then switching to various points in the past to describe what happened, and then coming back to the present again. I liked the style and thought it was a good way to show everything without having massive amounts of exposition/dialogue.

I also liked being able to see the past because, as mentioned above, it allows us to see Toadling in different situations and how she handles different circumstances. It was also nice because it means we get to read about Faerie and the different creatures that exist there and not just stay in the 'present' human world.

Overall I enjoyed this book and definitely recommend it as a quick, light read if you're interested in unusual fairytale retellings and/or fantasy books.

A few years ago I started reading adult fairy tales like "Uprooted" and "Spinning Silver" both by Naomi Novik, and fell into a black hole of where I couldn't find books that had a similar feel. Then I started reading T. Kingfisher and have been following her stuff like a weird devotee. In all of her works you can't help but like the characters. I'm speaking too broadly and not drilling down on this particular book, but it still applies.


If I could meet the greenteeths and not be eaten by them, I think I would. The sense of family Toadling got from them was like a warm hug to me.

The Goddess - this year is really the year of the rabbit. So many fantasy books like "The Magician's Daughter" by H.G. Parry and this one features a magical rabbit. I realize two doesn't really equal a lot, but I stand by what I'm saying, and anyways I like talking rabbits. The Goddess however, like she says, “We are made of cruelty and kindness both.”

Toadling and Halim were both relatable characters. I loved them both, but especially Halim. I loved his dedication to doing the right thing and the descriptions of his mother. How she would expect him to behave and how she would care for Toadling if he brought her back with him. There's an earnestness and wit to him, "...a knife that my mother’s imam said duas over and also I had it blessed by the Benedictine monk who ran the library, so between the two of them, it ought to be quite holy by now. I couldn’t find a rabbi. Well, I did, but he wanted to come along because he’d never met a fairy, and I thought you wouldn’t like that."

Toadling was such a lonesome creature before Halim came along. I could feel her grief at being the last sentinel, and was happy with the speed with which she made Halim a friend.

The one problem I have with T. Kingfisher novels is that I have such a book hangover once they're done, and this particular story was just a little over hundred pages, so it lasted me only a day. I'm now stuck to opening many books on my ereader and not committing to any.

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Another quote, this one made me laugh out loud.

Chapter 6 -- Page: 65

“Not that he’d have died,” she had muttered, “but I was like to throttle him if he did not stop his whining.”

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Thanks to Tor and NetGalley for the advanced copy.

At its heart, Thornhedge is a very sweet retelling of Sleeping Beauty. We see the story through Toadling (who I just want to hug!), a fairy who is charged with keeping the princess from doing harm. There are horrors, but overall it was a sweet story.

"She was theirs; they were hers. The love of monsters was uncomplicated."

I had the great fortune of being able to read this before publication thanks to NetGalley approving me. It is the first time I have had the chance to use NetGalley and having this book be my first foray could not have been a greater gift!

This story plays on what readers have come to expect from fairy tales. It challenges the genre and looks at it from a different point of view. It isn't quite parallel or parallax, but it asks the question of, what if everything you expect from fairy tales is not quite right? What if it is just set ever-so-slightly to the left?

Thornhedge faithfully takes the darkness of a true fairy tale and lets the story unspool in such a soft-hearted and gentle way, that you almost forget how dark the story truly becomes. Toadling is so effortlessly kind even to those who might not deserve it, that it feels impossible to describe her in the ways she often describes herself. At the core of its story, Thornhedge is about children taken from their families and what difference it makes to open yourself up to love. It is a story about refusing to bend what you believe to be beautiful to what the world thinks is beautiful. It is a story about finding a place to belong for yourself and how it is up to you to recognize where that space is.

Words cannot express how much of a joy this was to read or how excited I will be to purchase a physical copy as soon as it is available on the shelf!

This was a lovely magical twist on Sleeping Beauty, where <spoiler>Sleeping Beauty is an evil changeling</spoiler>. Lyrically told, it felt like a natural extension of the original tale, even as it tipped that story on its head. This was the perfect length as a novella, with its focus on the two central characters, and didn't have any extraneous fluff bogging it down. It was an easy one sitting, one hour read for me. Tiny and magical, like Toadling herself.

Some macabre content and a supremely gentle burgeoning friendship that might eventually become romantic, but nothing that would put this out of reach of a middle schooler who loves a good fairy tale twist.

Gonna admit it: I'm officially a T. Kingfisher stan now.

Another in the author's line of Fairy Tale novels, this is a reimagined Sleeping Beauty tale, from the perspective of the fairy who locked her into sleep.

Toadling was once a human child, stolen away to faerie, where she lived happily ever after - until she was plucked from her nest to serve as godmother to the Changeling left in her place. Now she lives alone within a nest of brambles, a small guard against the changing world.

Until one day, there came a knight...

Sweet, quiet, and absolute comfort reading.