VIOLET MADE OF THORNS

A disillusioned seer and a privileged prince: the stuff of fairy tales.

After an encounter with the prince and princess of Auveny, 18-year-old Violet Lune is plucked from the slums and brought to the palace, where she quickly becomes the kingdom’s new Seer. Taken under the wing of King Emilius, she becomes a favorite at court and eventually a trusted player in the king’s schemes, often setting her at odds with his son, Prince Cyrus. With a curse threatening both Cyrus’ life and the kingdom’s future, there is more scheming than ever before: Violet must maintain her precarious position as Seer, doing the king’s bidding and sorting out her constant feuding with Cyrus. At the same time, her dreams are becoming stranger: Ultimately, fate may force her to choose between the prince and herself. As the kingdom is threatened from within and without, with beasts massing on the borders and internal instability, everything comes down to the heart of the prince and the unlikely girl who might claim it. Chen draws pleasingly upon fairy-tale motifs, juxtaposing the rosy glow of stories with the real possibility of ugly, mundane realities. The Kingdom of Auveny evokes medieval Europe; Violet’s mother was exiled from the Kingdom of Yuenen, which is coded as a fantasy-world equivalent of China, making for a refreshing change from typical high-fantasy settings. Deeper worldbuilding and explorations of certain characters’ motivations would have expanded the story beyond the central romance.

Diverting and atmospheric.