The River Has Roots by Amal El-MohtarMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
A very short, lyrical fantasy novella which reminded me of Neil Gaiman's Stardust.
I read Amal El Mohtar jointly authored This Is How You Lose the Time War but felt it lacked something < a href = "https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..." My Review and have had it in the back of my mind to try another of her books and was surprised that this was her first solo effort. I loved it, part murder story, part romance, this is really a classical fairy tale. This creates a folk lore where 'grammar' is used as a metaphor for magic and magical transformations, where riddles are used to communicate as is singing. Sisters Esther and Ysabel are charged with singing to the magical willows that mark the boundary between Thistleford and Arcadia, essentially the land of the Fae. Esther falls in love with the Arcadian Rin who can adopt many a form , whilst being pursued by her human neighbour and traditional horrible suitor, Pollard, who is after the families land. A classic plot but beautifully told, interspersed with songs and riddles. So well worth listening to the audio. Hand drawings in the book I believe are by the author.
Very entertaining.No wonder it has won the 2025 Nebula Award for Best Novella and the 2026 Hugo and Locus Best Novella Prizes and others.
No comments:
Post a Comment