Misrule

It took me a bit, but I finally finished Misrule, book 2 in the Malice duology by Heather Walter. I started it right after finishing Malice, got through only the prologue, then kind of just stopped when it said that 100 years had passed. But I made a point of getting back to it once I was in more of a reading frame of mind (I've really struggled to read so far this year) - I wanted to know how Alyce's story ended!

100 years after the fall of Briar, Alyce (now named Nimara, after the first Vila) has built the Dark Court over the ruins of Briar. All the creatures of Malterre are welcome here, and they have been waging war against the Fae, gradually taking more and more of the Fae courts. But unknown to most of the other denizens of the Dark Court, Princess Aurora slumbers in a hidden wing of the palace. Nimara has spent much of the last century scouring every old book she can find for some hint on how to break this second curse. But when a mortal man washes up on their shore and unexpectedly wakes the sleeping princess, everything Nimara thought she knew is thrown into question.

While the story is in many ways similar between the two books, I overall found Misrule to be a very different book from Malice. There were so many different characters of different races, that I really struggled to keep everyone straight, particularly those of the Dark Court (a list of characters really would have helped!) Nimara was also thrown in so many different directions thanks to the people around her (plus her own wants), that in many ways it felt like she hadn't grown at all in the last 100 years, at least right until the end of the book when she started to take charge of her life. Which I admit was a really weird feel for a character who had overseen the Dark Court for a century.

Some of the events that happened also kind of didn't make sense. Like why, of all the remaining Graces, would Nimara choose to use Rose of all people? Rose should have been the very last person she would have used given their history. 

But I will admit, the end did surprise me! I thought the plot was moving towards a certain outcome, but it ended up doing some stuff that I didn't expect at all, which was rather fun! In particular, the climax with the Faerie King didn't play out at all how I was expecting.

All in all, I did enjoy the Malice duology. I hope Walter will write more books set in this world - I would love to read about other characters and eras (like the first Vila, or how the rest of the world reacts to the events of Misrule).

Malice

 I stumbled on Malice by Healther Walter the other day on my first trip wandering around Chapters since the pandemic started.  It's a Sleeping Beauty retelling told from the villain's perspective.  It sounded fantastic, and though I was a bit leery that it was book 1 of the Malice series, I decided to give it a try.  

Malice follows Alyce, a half-human half-Vila child who has always known she wasn't wanted.  In her world, the Vila were eradicated by an alliance of Fae and humans, reviled as evil creatures.  Submitted to horrible tortures when she was young, the Fae ambassador deemed her safe, and so she was sent to live in a Grace house, mixing elixirs for paying customers using drops of her blood.  While there are many Graces, half-human and half-Fae children whose blood shines gold with Fae magic until it is exhausted, Alyce is the only Dark Grace, able to craft elixirs for jealous nobles wanting to damage their rivals.  Despite being unique, no one lets her forget that Alyce is tainted by Vila blood - a monster, and different, someone to be reviled.

But then she meets the Princess Aurora.  Aurora is the last heir of the Briar Throne, cursed to die by Vila magic unless she finds True Love's Kiss.  And she is the only one to voluntarily seek out Alice's company, despite everyone else in the kingdom being opposed.

Overall, I really enjoyed Malice.  The world it is set in was really interesting, particularly how the Graces functioned within it, but also the history of Briar (it was a Queendom because an ancient Queen was able to succeed at a Fae challenge where many men had failed, but over the years the Queens had given away most of their power to their husbands so they were now largely only figure-heads).  I also liked a lot of the characters, although several of them really disappointed me as the narrative unfolded (I was particularly sad that Alyce embraced the villain role in the end a little too willingly - while I understand why it happened, it was really jarring because she was a good character all the way along to that point).  It started to lose me a little at the end unfortunately thanks to this.

But overall,  as I said, it was a great read.  I finished it off in three days, staying up way too late in the process.  I was really happy to get this into a book too because I've had a fairly dry reading spell as of late.  Thankfully, I'll be able to continue with the story soon: Misrule, the second book, is released tomorrow!  I've preordered it on my Kindle so I'll be able to finish the story soon!  And even more fortunately, they are only a duology, so I'll be getting the end of the tale with Misrule. :)