Thorn
No usual princess
Release 4 March 2
Writer tisar KhananiIn
Publisher arperteenH
Price 7. 9 9£Based on the Grimm fairytale,
The Goose Girl, Intisar Khanani’s
Thorn tells the tale of the Princess
Alyrra. She is belittled by her
mother and beaten by her brother
so she desires an escape from the
royal duties she is forced to carry
out. When she is betrothed to
Prince Kestrin, she fi nds herself
tangled up in a long-standing feud
and transformed from princess to
lowly goose girl. She is fi nally freed
from the life she wanted to escape,
but will duty draw her back in?
Thorn was self-published as an
ebook back in 2012, but is being
republished with a revised text and
a very pretty print edition. And it’s
easy to see why. There’s a softness
to the tale that mingles with theThe Lost
Future Of
Pepper-
harrow
Are fi ends electric?
Release 5 March
Writer N atasha Pulley
Publisher loomsbury B
Publishing
Price 12.9 9£If you’ve read Natasha
Pulley’s fi rst novel The Watchmaker
Of Filigree Street, about clairvoyant
samurai Keita Mori, you’ll be
prepared for just how strange its
sequel is. There’s a lot to take in.
Juxtaposing Victorian England
with Meiji era Japan, The Lost Future
Of Pepperharrow follows Thaniel
Steepleton, a civil servant and part-
time musician, as he travels to Tokyo
to investigate a spate of hauntings at
the British embassy. With his adopted
daughter and clockwork octopusin tow, he fi nds himself navigating
a complex political maze: Russian
warships are inching closer, and the
Japanese prime minister is spoiling
for a fi ght. Mount Fuji is on the
verge of eruption, and somewhere
past the Aokigahara forest, a
scientifi c outpost is doing something
unspeakable with electrical currents.
On top of that, Mori – Thaniel’s
sort-of boyfriend, and the only
person who might unravel what’s
going on with the ghosts – is missing.
An intricately plotted mystery,
this novel demands the reader’s full
attention. The prose is gorgeous,
and the characters fascinating. Mori
himself is the kind of character it’s
impossible to fully pin down, a man
literally and fi guratively out of time,
but there’s barely a character here
who doesn’t contain multitudes.
As it’s the second in a series, this
book probably isn’t the best place to
jump into this world. But if you have
read the fi rst one, or you’re willing to
go along with it, it’s pretty wonderful.
Sarah Lines
BOOK CLUB
The Lost Future Of Pepperharrow // Thornharsher edges. Khanani never shies
away from the brutality inherent in
the story, but nor does she forget to
contrast it with lighter moments.
Narratively speaking, Thorn
sticks closely to the plot of the
original Goose Girl fairytale, but
Khanani takes the time to establish
it within the world she has built.
The tweaks feel organic to Alyrra’s
story; there’s a larger number of
political machinations here, class
struggles, and even gang warfare.
The world beyond Alyrra’s feels
suitably large and it gives the
reader a desire to explore the
corners of it further.
There is a lovely boom in
fairytale reinterpretations going
on now and Thorn is a worthy
addition. Light and lyrical,
Khanani crafts a coming-of-age
story that plays out on a political
stage without losing the sense of
intimacy that makes Alyrra such a
compelling heroine.
Becky Lea
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