This was absolutely delightful. I am a sucker for a good novella and this did not disappoint. Toadling is such a lovely and sweet character that is just looking to do the right thing. This was such a neat take on sleeping beauty and it is a story I am still thinking about.

A sleeping beauty retelling with a dash of changeling and old faerie lore wrapped up nicely in a little novella with melancholic and whimsical feels.

In the past, Toadling grows up amongst the bog creatures and is tasked with providing a blessing with the changeling who took her place, however it goes try and she must stay by the child’s side to prevent harm. In the present, a knight unlike other knights wants to solve the mystery of the old legend and goes adventuring through the brambles hundreds of years later, forcing Toadling to address him and the curse she created to contain the evil princess.

Toadling as a main character is kind, unselfish, and trying to navigate what is the right thing to do within the scope of her abilities in this retelling. Her swamp life and learning magic was the most interesting part of the story. The princess, on the other hand, is incredibly one-dimensionally evil and I thought that left more to be desired. I didn’t love the twist that for the “evil fairy” to be good that the princess had to become the villain. I also found the knight rather boring, although the philosophical bits and interweaving of Islam were well done.

Ultimately, I liked it, but didn’t love it.

CW: suicide, death, animal torture, dead body, self-harm, blood

Thanks to the MacMillian Audio, NetGalley, and Tor Publishing Group for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Enjoyable fairy tale re-telling of Sleeping Beauty, playing with notions of who is the villain. The writing flowed and you really felt like you were in the protagonist Toadling’s head.

Ahoy there me mateys!  Sleeping Beauty with a fantastic twist!  This is a lovely Kingfisher book (as usual).  What happens when the princess in the tower is the evil one?  This isn't the story of the princess but of Toadling, the stolen child tasked with a christening blessing that goes wrong.

Toadling was a wonderful character.  She may not be the best person for the job but she is tenacious in trying to do her duty.  I loved her time spent as a toad.  The descriptions made being a toad sound delightful.  Toadling is not beautiful, powerful, clever, or even fully human anymore.  She is endearing and a new favorite.

This is a character study and a commentary on fairytales.  I loved how this book dealt with the fae and changelings.  I loved the knight, Halim, and how he wasn't at all like the stereotypes.  This had commentary on family ties, love, and the ramifications of power.  Also loved the author's notes.  Arrrr!

I love that there are fairy tales that continue the true tradition of fairy tales. They have become far too simple or repetitive. Having a curse that isn’t necessary something to break is brilliant. The characters have depth. I always love T. Kingfisher for something completely different than what everyone else is doing.

Loved this book!!! T. Kingfisher is so good at modern adult fairy tales. There’s always a strong feminist bent and I appreciate that. These are fairy tales for the non Disney adults.

Thanks to Netgalley and and Tor for giving me the chance to review this novella!

An achingly brief, beautifully wrought Sleeping Beauty retelling that only a the clever and sensitive mind of Kingfisther could create. Flipping the narrative on its head, the short work was bursting with unique ideas and interesting spins on fae lore, and features one of my favorite protagonists in some time (though I've always been one to side with bog witches, so it already had that going for it). I only wish I could have spent another 200 pages in this world.

I think I would really like to sit as a toad under a mushroom with Toadling and just smell the dirt. It sounds very nice.

Toadling is definitely the highest point of this book, which makes sense given that if you boil it down this is mostly a protracted character study. I love an unsure, ineloquent protagonist with a different perspective than expected. Her perspective is what makes this interesting.

This was a delightful and endearing little story! I fell so in love with Toadling from the start. It's a novella length story, and I think it works really well for this story. Fairytales are not always my go-to, but I had a feeling that T. Kingfisher would deliver some good twists and a different spin, and I was right! This one is a spin on Sleeping Beauty, but Toadling is not here for princes trying to wake her up. In fact, she's built a whole fortress just to prevent that sort of thing.

It'll all become clear during the course of the story, but it was very enjoyable reading about Toadling, and how the world has changed, quite literally, around her, as she insists on keeping her promises (and curses). She's been without her beloved found family, a bunch of faery toads, and she misses them, but she must keep the princess in the tower. She's been turning away princes for ages, but when she meets Halim, he manages to claw his way into her heart. He shares his stories, and how he ended up at Toadling's tower, and she finally lets her guard down a bit and tells him why she is here, and that is really the bread and butter of this story, these two people sharing what has taken them away from their loved ones, and how they are finally building a bond with someone new.

Bottom Line: This story was so heartwarming, but still had enough twists and darker bits to make it a truly entertaining fairytale.

Thornhedge is a whimsical and quirky take on Sleeping Beauty told from the perspective of a human child taken to be replaced by a changeling. While I enjoyed the originality and voice of the story, it was missing the personality that I loved in T Kingfisher’s A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking.

If you’re looking for a quick read with a twist on Sleeping Beauty unlike anything you’ve seen before and traditional take on fairies, this might be the perfect read for you!

3.75 stars rounded up to 4. I enjoyed this short, creepy, and endearing fantasy! I loved Toadling as a character and following along as she found her way through her troubled and cursed life. Would definitely recommend if you’re looking for a quick fantasy read with some horror elements.

Thank you so much NetGalley, Tor Publishing Group, and Tor Books for this absolutely magical arc!

5/5 stars!

I absolutely LOVED this!! Thornhedge was everything I've been needing in a fantasy novel but haven't found in so long. The prose, the medieval world, Toadling, Halim, UGH I JUST LOVED IT ALL <3

- THORNHEDGE is a novella that asks "what if the damsel in distress was actually the villain?"
- I'm always impressed by Kingfisher's ability to craft a full world in so few pages. The world of this book feels lush, but it's only exactly as complicated as it needs to be.
- As I'm finding to be a hallmark of Kingfisher's work, THORNHEDGE is somehow cozy and gruesome at the same time. I don't know how, but it is.

When Toadling was born, she was stolen by fairies and grew up in faerieland. Once an adult, the fae ask Toadling to return to the human world and offer a blessing of protection to a newborn child. Centuries later, a knight approaches a towering wall of brambles, where the thorns are as thick as your arm and as sharp as swords. He's heard there's a curse here that needs breaking, but it's a curse Toadling will do anything to uphold.

This is not the first variation of Sleeping Beauty that T. Kingfisher has written, but this novella works with the premise What if people should have feared Sleeping Beauty? What if she was kept away for a reason? Toadling has kept watch over the tower and the brambles, watching as time went by. She has little magic as a changeling that lived with the equivalent of fairy country bumpkins, so the job she was given centuries ago went awry. I enjoyed seeing her POV, and how she gradually opened up with a knight curious about her and her role in the story. What she says and does matters, and this is more than she'd received from the fairy goddess. I thoroughly enjoyed this story and wished it was longer so I could see more of Toadling's future.

This book felt so cozy and comforting. It made me think of the Grimm's fairy tales, somehow a mixture of feeling like a child snuggled into a blanket with some hot chocolate on a cold day listening to their granny tell them a story and also a somewhat gory and (arguably) not child-friendly story to telling. I pretty much immediately fell in love and found it compulsively readable. Each time I decided I'd pause at the end of a chapter to jot down some notes, I ended up completing skipping that and jumping into the next chapter. The characters were so sweet and not, for once, unearthly beautiful. It was so, so close to being perfect until the ending. Don't get me wrong, if the intention was to be told as a classic fairy tale would be, then I think the ending was dead on - and I do believe that was the intention because I've seen T. Kingfisher do intense endings before. But the resolution just felt so easy peasy.

Another charming-yet-twisty fairy tale from T. Kingfisher, who is rapidly becoming for me one of those authors where I will read absolutely anything they write, without even glancing at the synopsis. Thornhedge, like so many of Kingfisher's works, takes a well-known tale and looks at it from a slant angle, and in so doing gives us one of the most endearing fantasy protagonists I've read in a while. Frankly, it's remarkable how much I've been describing this novella with words like cute, charming, sweet, and earnest, considering how genuinely grotesque a few elements are - but that blend of charm and horror seems to be where Kingfisher excels, as she has with Thornhedge.

Thanks to Tor Books for the advance review copy!

An absolutely wonderful reading experience! To meet Toadling and watch as she makes her way through life was a pleasant surprise. T Kingfisher skillfully worked her magic and Toadling appeared in our hearts. The character feels blessed and believes in sharing with the rest of the world. When her error sets her life on a different path, she faces the consequence with her unfailing faith that everything will come right in the end. And it does.

Can we please have more Toadling stories? This one deserves 5 hearts, but we can settle for stars.

I received a copy of this book for review from NetGalley. Thornhedge is beautiful and sad, twisted but loving, and so very sweet. I absolutely loved it, and it is my new favorite Sleeping Beauty. (Now, to be perfectly honest, I would read just about anything by T. Kingfisher, so this was not a surprise to me.) I love Toadling, and my only regret is that I didn't get several more books of her.

A fairy tale retold, but with a twist? Yes, please!

Here we see the story of Sleeping Beauty retold from the point of view of the fairy. Toadling was supposed to be the princess, but she was stolen by the fae and a changeling was left in her place. She was raised by the greenteeth, trained in the ways of their magic. And when she was grown, the fae asked her to return to the human world, to place a spell of protection on the creature who took her place. But as often happens, the spell goes awry, and Toadling remains with the humans, to protect the princess as best as she can.

But as the changeling princess grows, she shows herself adept at casual cruelty to animals and people alike, and Toadling must more often protect others from her. Toadling’s magic is weak. The creature – for that is what the “princess” is – is strong, and vicious, and without a shred of empathy. The best thing Toadling can do is to put the princess into an enchanted sleep and guard the castle, lest anyone get some foolish idea about castles and princesses and breaking a spell with true love’s kiss. And history passes them by – Toadling, castle, and princess – until one day a knight comes along, drawn by an old, old story.

This is a fantastic reimagining of Sleeping Beauty! The fairy is always evil, come to wreak harm on the innocent human princess. Here, though, Kingfisher flips the whole thing around, and it absolutely works. Toadling is a winsome character, and the knight, though not big on derring-do, is charming in unexpected ways. It works.

It is a novella, not a full-length novel. I don’t think I realized that when I started reading. But that’s long enough. Would I love more of Toadling’s story? Of course. Was this story just right? Absolutely.

The story is gentle, in turns wistful and thought-provoking, touching on topics of love, loss, responsibility, and the deceptive nature of the outer self. It may be one of my favorite books this year. I highly recommend it, and I must read more of T. Kingfisher’s books.

I received an advance copy for review from Netgalley, and I was very happy to. T. Kingfisher has long been a favorite writer and while I enjoy her increasingly creepy forays into horror, I was starting to miss her fantasy.

Kingfisher’s realm is fantasy with actual sensible people in it, and it is delightful and refreshing. And now she’s given us a new look at the traditional Sleeping Beauty tale, with one important twist: What if the impenetrable hedge of thorns and the sleeping spell around the Princess’ castle wasn’t just to keep people away, but to keep something dangerous trapped inside?

Outside is the fairy changeling Toadling, whose fumbled spell started the whole thing off and who has guarded the castle for… how many years? Enough to see the tales fade and the curious disappear. Until one day a knight shows up, eager to prove an old story he read about in a book…

Thornhedge contains Kingfisher’s soft humor, common sense fantasy characters and sideways look at fairy tales. While the threat later is real, it seems very intimate and low-stakes throughout the short book. It’s not as action-filled as, say, her “A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking,” but it’s a fun, breezy, slightly unsettling gem of a book.