Charlotte Kersten

Year published: 2008

Category: Fantasy

Summary: 
As the newly appointed Chalice, Mirasol is the most important member of the Master’s Circle. It is her duty to bind the Circle, the land and its people together with their new Master. But the new Master of Willowlands is a Priest of Fire, only drawn back into the human world by the sudden death of his brother. No one knows if it is even possible for him to live amongst his people. Mirasol wants the Master to have his chance, but her only training is as a beekeeper. How can she help settle their demesne during these troubled times and bind it to a Priest of Fire, the touch of whose hand can burn human flesh to the bone?

A captivating tale that reveals the healing power of duty and honour, love and honey.

My Thoughts:
This is a beautiful, odd little book. Mock me all you want for using the term unironically, but this would probably be the perfect recommendation for someone looking for a cottagecore book. The plot is slow and quiet, mostly focused on the importance of kindness, and it is full of lush and/or cozy descriptions of nature and domestic life. I love the protagonist Mirasol’s connection to the demesne, her passion for making her magical honey, and her amazing relationship with her bees. There are so many lovely details, such as the way she takes down a little wooden dormouse statue to sit on her table whenever she studies in the library. In my opinion, Robin McKinely absolutely excels in creating truly beautiful, magical worlds that are full of charming details and comforting “mundanities” in this way.

The demesne might as well be a character itself, and the magic that binds the people to the land of the demesne is truly unique. Over the course of the book, we get to learn about the intricacies of this magic, from the nature of earthlines to the different roles of the Circle, the sensitivity of the land to harm and the importance of proper rites and ceremonies. In particular, I think the contrast between the natural world and the extremely precise rites, ceremonies, and etiquette that sustain it is very interesting.

Someone suggested this for my Trauma in Speculative Fiction reading project, and I think it’s one of the first books I’ve read for this project that is really about cultural, collective trauma recovery from a prior ruler’s abuses of power and destruction of his land. We get to see the characters learn how to weave their land and society back together again after large scale damage done to them and the very earth itself.

The reader never gets a particularly strong sense of any of the characters; instead of seeing this as a deficit, I think it’s just clear that McKinley was interested in a different kind of storytelling here. Similarly, I know that she can write a gorgeous romance but the romance here is just as sparse as the characters are. Lots of time passes without any dialogue or actual scenes with actions taking place. Instead, much of the book is made up of summaries of what is happening with the Chalice, Master, and Circle. I did think all of this was interesting, but with so many descriptions of protocol, procedure and magical rules, I sometimes found myself resisting the urge to skim these paragraphs. In the end, it still worked out to be an enjoyable, unique read for me. That being said, I don’t know if I would recommend it as someone else’s first Robin McKinley book and I understand why some would be frustrated by it.