Review: Heart of Thorns

Heart of Thorns by Bree Barton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Heart of Thorns is a book that in some ways reads like a checklist of all the things we want in YA fantasy fiction these days. We have a heroine coming into her powers, a guy who is sometimes insightful and mellow with the heroine, a couple of dark villains, sister love in the face of mother loss, a father who loves his daughters, gay characters, bisexual characters, differently abled characters. There's so much going on and yet, as a fair number of reviewers have mentioned, the tropes are strong with this one, Reader. We can begin with the "unwilling bride," move quickly to "oh my, I have powers I never knew about," then progress to the "well, actually, the prince is more than he seems," and so on. While the occasional witty banter between the protagonist, Mia, and her intended, Quin, is fun overall this novel is built upon a foundation of common plot devices, while trying to build something new. I'm not sure I feel it worked, but the last 15% of the book did go to unexpected places.

Among the things I loved in this book is its use of Welsh, a language that always seems to make magic more magical for me. The book is set in the kindgom of Glas Ddir, Green Blue in Welsh. Mia was raised to hunt Gwyrach (literal translation from the Welsh is "awful"), women possessed of magic powerful enough to heal or kill with simple touch. Unfortunately, she finds out that she is a Gwyrach. And to make matters worse she finds this out when she is being pressed into marrying into the ruling family that believes in killing Gwyrach no matter how young. And not killing them... quickly. Women must wear gloves so they cannot lay hands on anyone (especially male anyones). Mia plans to escape with her younger sister Angelyne rather than marry Prince Quin but her plans go awry when someone tries to murder him and in trying to save him, she discovers she a Gwyrach. Quin notices this point, too. But Quin is an okay, standup guy. He's not going to let a little thing like his wife being a demonic witch bother him. In short order the pair escape, connect with the Dujia (what the magic-wielding Gwyrach are really called), Mia starts training and valuing her magic, including the fact that she can hear truths versus lies, and Quin enjoys himself while expressing concern that Mia doesn't really show good judgment at times. Along the way the real party behind the recent anti-royalty movement problems in Glas Ddir is revealed. I like Mia and Quin, the two central characters, though not necessarily as a couple. As for Mia and her sister Angie, I love stories with nurturing sister love and this one stands that relationship on end and spins it until you're not sure you know either sister, which in its way is an accomplishment. We arrive at an ending which manages to be a sort of a cliffhanger that leaves the reader wanting more yet satisfied with the epilogue of the book, no mean feat.

I wish this book had steered further away from various tropes. Barton has come up with an underlying story that could be rather original, but it is garbed in common storylines. I would still pick up the second book in the series to see where Barton plans to go with Mia, Angie and Quin.

I received a Digital Review Copy from Katherine Tegen Books in exchange for an honest review.

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