Plot bobbles aside, a necessary read for Hinterland fans—and who isn’t? (Fantasy. 16-adult)
A dark fantasy sequel asks whether characters who flee their stories still have a chance for a happy ending.
Once upon a time she was Alice-Three-Times, a vengeful princess in a grim fairy-tale world. Now she’s just Alice, trying to be human in New York City even as her escape triggers a mass exodus from the Hinterland. Ellery Finch, the schoolmate who helped free her, is growing weary of his travels through alternate dimensions, finding his thoughts turning back to home—and Alice. Meanwhile, someone is murdering ex-Stories in a very Alice-ish way….This follow-up to the astonishing The Hazel Wood (2018) displays the same lush prose, dizzying imagination, and macabre sensibilities (along with the grisly body count). Evocative details limn exotic fairylands and gritty New York as equally magical. Personalities are more approachable: blonde, white Alice is less rage-fueled than filled with confusion, frustration, and longing; brown-skinned Finch has grown beyond his vacillating geekiness to courage and confidence. Alternating between Alice’s first-person narration and Finch’s third-person perspective, the twin plots don’t intersect until the surreal, shattering climax; but since the romantic yearning that drives both protagonists was scarcely hinted in the first book, it never becomes convincing here. Still, they make a formidable team.
Plot bobbles aside, a necessary read for Hinterland fans—and who isn’t? (Fantasy. 16-adult)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-24607-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
Not everybody lives, and certainly not “happily ever after”—but within all the grisly darkness, Alice’s fierce integrity and...
A ferocious young woman is drawn into her grandmother’s sinister fairy-tale realm in this pitch-black fantasy debut.
Once upon a time, Althea Proserpine achieved a cult celebrity with Tales from the Hinterland, a slim volume of dark, feminist fairy tales, but Alice has never met her reclusive grandmother nor visited her eponymous estate. Instead, she has spent her entire 17 years on the run from persistent bad luck, relying only on her mother, Ella. Now Althea is dead and Ella has been kidnapped, and the Hinterland seems determined to claim Alice as well. The Hinterland—and the Stories that animate it—appear as simultaneously wondrous and horrific, dreamlike and bloody, lyrical and creepy, exquisitely haunting and casually, brutally cruel. White, petite, and princess-pretty Alice is a difficult heroine to like in her stormy (and frequently profane) narration, larded with pop-culture and children’s-literature references and sprinkled with wry humor; her deceptive fragility conceals a scary toughness, icy hostility, and simmering rage. Despite her tentative friendship (and maybe more) with Ellery Finch, a wealthy biracial, brown-skinned geek for all things Althea Proserpine, any hints of romance are negligible compared to the powerful relationships among women: mothers and daughters, sisters and strangers, spinner and stories; ties of support and exploitation and love and liberation.
Not everybody lives, and certainly not “happily ever after”—but within all the grisly darkness, Alice’s fierce integrity and hard-won self-knowledge shine unquenched. (Fantasy. 16-adult)Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-14790-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
Dark, demanding, and delicious.
Twelve pitch-black original fairy tales form the backbone to an acclaimed fantasy series.
Fans of the Hazel Wood series know of Althea Proserpine’s cult anthology, the original stories whose characters escaped into our world. Featuring, among others, Hansa the Traveler, Twice-Killed Katherine, and, of course, Alice-Three-Times (whose tale’s much-speculated-about ending falls oddly flat), the stories feel both familiar—the first was already included in its entirety in the series opener and several others, in abbreviated and altered form—and revelatory, unfolding in all their rich, lush, macabre, and grisly glory. Despite their vaguely preindustrial Western European setting, these are anything but traditional folktales. While every protagonist is female, the themes are not explicitly feminist; rather, the overwhelming tone is savage, angry, bitter, and cruel. Most of the leads do achieve a vicious and vengeful sort of triumph, but only one even approaches a conventional happy ending. Relationships (exclusively heterosexual) are only an excuse for male lust, domination, and manipulation. Parents (especially mothers) are mostly neglectful, smothering, abusive…or dead. Death, often horrific death, is a constant presence, even as a literal character in several stories. Although this collection could well be read on its own, the unrelenting grimness can be wearying; it may be best appreciated for the context and commentary it offers for the preceding volumes. Tierney’s bold illustrations, many featuring stark, contrasting tones of red, black, and white, accentuate the mood. There is some diversity in skin tone.
Dark, demanding, and delicious. (Fairy tales. 16-18)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-30272-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
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