I read this YA novel several years ago, so I’m not going to attempt to write a new review. I do want to mention it here though as it is a polyamorous romantasy. This is a cleaned-up version of my Goodreads review from right after I finished it. (Note: I’m no longer active on Goodreads, but you can find me on Storygraph as andybrokaw. I’m going to attempt to be active there, but it it also has all my Goodreads data from when I waws using it.)
This is the story of a boy and the girl he loves. And the boy they both love.
We start with a town where everything is idyllic. The weather is perfect for crops, wounds heal overnight, no one ever gets sick, and all pregnancies go well. There’s a price for this, of course. Every seven years, a young man is sent into the forest. He typically doesn’t survive meeting with the demon therein.
Our story starts when the bargain becomes due earlier than expected. A horse is sick, there’s a blight in the wheat field, and a child is born premature. Sure enough, the blood tree turns red to signal it’s time for a new sacrifice. Three teens now come together to work out why the sacrifice is being called for early and to try to save the boy who “wins” the right to enter the forest under the full moon.
I’m gonna get a tad spoilery now, so you might want to skip the rest and just go read this book. The writing is almost lyrical, the plot is captivating, the characters are detailed, and although it’s a little on the dark side, the gore and violence are actually pretty low-key.
Our leads are the daughter of the local witch, the boy so wonderful everyone has been certain he will be the next sacrifice for years, and an angry hunter who was raised as a girl for the first years of his life because his mother didn’t want him in the running for death-by-demon.
The cover copy didn’t present this as a romance, but it very much is. It’s a love triangle, but an actual triangle and not the V’s people call love triangles. My first hint that this was more than it seemed was when Rhun thinks of Mairwyn and describes her as “the person he loves who he is allowed to love.” My eyes went wide and I may have shrieked happily over the implication that he loved more than one person and that there’s something others consider unsuitable about the other one. It’s obvious from soon thereafter that Mairwyn knows her boyfriend is into their mutual friend and is absolutely cool with it, perhaps because she also loves the other object of his affections.
I was scared for a little that this was going to be a “gay boy tries to force himself to love a girl because he’s scared of being out in a medieval society and winds up hurting people” story, but was very happy to be wrong about that. Rhun absolutely loves and is attracted to Mairwyn. He just also loves and is attracted to Arthur. Yay, bisexuality!
5 Stars
