Synopsis:

“Oh what is stronger than a death? Two sisters singing with one breath.”

In the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, dwells the mysterious Hawthorn family. 

There, they tend and harvest the enchanted willows and honour an ancient compact to sing to them in thanks for their magic. None more devotedly than the family’s latest daughters, Esther and Ysabel, who cherish each other as much as they cherish the ancient trees. 

But when Esther rejects a forceful suitor in favour of a lover from the land of Faerie, not only the sisters’ bond but also their lives will be at risk…

Review:

A short, whimsical and fairytale-esque novella that follows two sisters whose family has cared for the enchanted willow trees that grow along the river flowing out of Faerie. The sisters have beautiful voices, and they use them to sing to the willows and each other. One sister however, falls in love with a Fae, and not everyone is amenable to that relationship…

Stories about sisters are my favourite thing. Folklore and fables are my other favourite things. Therefore, this book was perfect for me.

I hadn’t read anything from El-Mohtar before, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the way this was written. It’s almost a ballad, the prose undulating and eloquent. I thought it worked incredibly well for the length of the book.

The relationship between the sisters was also wonderful. Their absolute love for one another made me so happy, and the inevitable divergence tugged at my heartstrings. Ysabel, the younger, loves their life in the mortal world, while the elder, Esther is drawn to Faerie. I  just loved the pair of them so much. You could feel that they were each other’s favourite people in the world, which is how it should be.

The plot is fairly straightforward, and there wasn’t a huge amount of setting or worldbuilding for it, which didn’t really bother me at all. Faerie is a mystery to most, and the Fae magic is wild and unpredictable, so the fact that it was never explained made sense to me. It just is, and that is okay. The magic here is called ‘grammar’ and the wordplay was excellent.

“What is magic but a change in the world? What is conjugation but a transformation, one thing into another? She runs; she ran; she will run again.” 

All in all, a delightful little book, and I am very interested in reading more from Amal El-Mohtar. I have also heard that the audiobook for this is great, with singing and sound effects, so perhaps check that out if you are interested in this one.