Saturday Woodcutter believes she is the only one of her many siblings without any magic, until the day when she throws a mirror out of the window in a rage, and conjures an ocean in the backyard. Because one of her brothers has run away and Saturday believes her ocean may have drowned him, she grabs her trusty axe (which has decided to change shape into a sword for the time being) and sets sail on her sister Thursday’s pirate ship in order to try to locate him again. She’s abducted by a giant bird and taken to an icy cave, towards the top of the highest mountain in the world. The blind witch there isn’t actually all that skilled at magic and was attempting to kidnap Saturday’s eldest brother, the adventurous Jack Woodcutter, who’s the man who stole the witch’s eyes in the first place.
Saturday is advised to keep silent about her true identity by Peregrine, a cross-dressing young man also trapped at the top of the mountain. The witch believes him to be her daughter, after the foolish young noble accepted a wish from what he thought was a kindly fairy. The wish was in fact a curse, and it allowed the witch’s daughter to escape her mountain home, forcing Peregrine to take her place instead. He’s lost track of the years he’s spent there, trying to foil the witch’s many plots. Peregrine dreams of breaking free of the curse and going back to his betrothed, who he believes he’s seen in visions through much of his time in captivity. Imagine his surprise when he realises that the fearless warrior woman he’s seen in visions and dreams is in fact Saturday.
Saturday, in turn, doesn’t see why romance needs to have any part in her adventure, although she can’t deny that she likes kissing Peregrine. To rescue him, and escape the mountain, it looks like she’s going to have to kill the witch, who’s dangerously close to opening a portal to a hell dimension. Of course, killing the witch may wake the slumbering dragon on the mountain top and kill them all. What’s an adventurous young lady to do? It’s not easy being a hero. More on my blog.
I’m always on the hunt for a good fairy tail for grown ups (Ever read Daughter of the Forest?) but I can’t tell if this is fun or crosses the line into twee? Peregrine the cross-dressing kissing-friend/blind witch prisoner?
PS. I tried to read the rest on your blog but got a weird error from Blogger?
I must have messed up the link somehow. It’s fixed now.
This is not really twee, and the reversed gender roles work really well. Peregrine is pretty much forced into cross-dressing because of the curse he gets put under by the witch’s daughter. When she tricks him by saying she’s going to grant him a wish, he’s basically magically altered into looking a lot more like her, and forced to take her place at the top of the mountain. As long as he’s cursed, he doesn’t age, and it turns out that he spends quite a long time posing as the witch’s daughter. He seems to grow quite used to the cross-dressing.
I liked the first book, and I liked this one even more. I nearly lost my shit earlier when the author herself not only re-tweeted my review but thanked me and praised my writing. It was one of the highlights of my blogging career so far.
Oooh that IS FANTASTIC and definitely cause for celebration! And also well deserved. Congratulations!
That’s awesome!