To start off with the hippogriff in the room, yes, this book started out as Dramione fanfiction.
However, Rowling doesn’t profit off it (that would be the entire point of rewriting it to publish), and to be perfectly blunt, anyone insisting that someone picking up this book who has never even heard of Harry Potter is going to, after reading, go pick up the middle school fantasy series that inspired it is kidding themselves.
I’d draw a comparison between Fifty Shades and Twilight, but those at least were both romance series. There are even bigger genre and tone differences here.
And if it helps you sleep at night, I’m sure Rowling doesn’t love that two fanfics where the character she’s admitted to relating to the most gets sold into sexual slavery are now published novels.
Are we all on the same page?
What’s going on?
When the sun shines at night, he who will bring an end to war on this land shall be victorious. He shall be an heir, twice over, and a rightful sovreign over the continent.”
Briony Rosewood is the princess of the Kingdom of Evermore (except, as she tells us, she’s not a princess; her position has no title, because women cannot sit on Evermore’s throne, and her brother Rory is the one and only heir. A fact that has had no negative effects on her self-worth, whatsoever (can you sense the sarcasm?), and her brother is the prophesied Chosen One, the “heir twice over” who’s destined to bring an end to the war, and rule over the entire continent.
Except he’s dead. Defeated in the fated battle by Veronika Mallow. Briony doesn’t even sense it when he dies.
And then she’s rounded up to be auctioned off as a “heartspring”, with her magic sapped to strengthen her owner, Toven Hearst, her old rival from school.
The Magic
One thing I genuinely loved about this book is the magic system. Magic is split between heart and mind spells, with mind magic being harder to learn but safer, and heart magic being easier, and stronger quicker, but riskier, with a chance of the caster draining themselves. Sometimes beyond the point of recovery.
Very early on in the book we are told about the killing spell “Heartstop”, which crushes the target’s heart while taking a heavy toll on the caster. I’m very fond of any magic system that takes the idea of healing spells, and brings them to their logical, dark conclusion of “If you can fix something, you can break it”. We haven’t been told about the mind magic equivalent, but here’s hoping for one in the sequel.
What mind magicians do have that heart magicians don’t is the ability to read and manipulate minds. All throughout the book we have characters reading, shielding, and editing memories to take advantage of their situations. This has the added advantage of scenes that give a very close look at Briony’s mental state, and how she is processing things. Or maybe more accurately, not processing. The magic allows for very literal compartmentalization.
“Think of your mind as a library. Shelves upon shelves of novels and journals and biographies. Find an empty shelf for this moment.”
Heart magicians, meanwhile, have the ability to siphon magic off a target, and this is the reason Briony is auctioned off, with her stronger than usual magic making her an appealing purchase.
“Heart magic can be shared, like when a couple marries and decides to share their magic. They become heartsprings with each other…”
“It’s not always tied to love.”
We also find out that Briony had spent almost all her school years boosting her brother through the same process.
Sibling Issues
One of the most revealing things we learn throughout the course of the book is just how much Briony had been expected to shrink herself down to accommodate Rory. Of the two, Briony is the prodigy, but Rory is the heir to the kingdom, and their father doesn’t want Rory passed up by his sister, who, by her own admission, will never amount to more than a bartering chip in a political marriage.
“She was allowed to receive good marks, but never better than Rory. She couldn’t outshine him in class. If Rory was struggling, it was her duty to make sure he succeeded. No matter how.”
Throughout the book’s many flashbacks, we’re shown Briony doing the magical equivalent of passing notes in class to make sure Rory has the right answers, while playing dumb herself, and boosting his magic to help him learn things quicker, while, again, downplaying herself as much as possible.
Rory is aware of the notes, obviously, but we’re never told that he’d figured out that his sister is the reason for his impressive magic as well.
“When they were very young, he used to say that they were answering the questions together, as a team.”
And Rory’s seeming obliviousness to just how much his sister has been shoved into his shadow does hurt his character a bit, especially since it’s not clear just how much that specific part of the dynamic was intentional on the author’s part. We see Rory stand up for her a few times, but by the end of the war, we know Briony has been kicked out of war meetings, her brother caving to his generals. I don’t think this is a case of bad writing however, so much as just that what the sequel does with it will be very make-or-break.
“Briony had learned from a very young age that as a woman in the Rosewood line, the most valuable thing she could learn to do was smile when she’d rather scream.”
It is still an important bit of character building for Briony though. Especially early on in the book, we see over and over that Rory dying is the end of the world for her, not just because he’s her brother, but because she’s so conditioned to not see an alternative to him being on the throne. Other characters point out that if she escapes, she’s a point to rally around, but she just can’t accept the concept. The closest she is able to get is a thought of her and her cousins now needing to produce a male heir as quickly as possible.
Briony cannot conceive of a world where she gets the throne.
Or where the prophecy applies to her.
“My line doesn’t matter anymore. A woman cannot be ruler of Evermore.”
The Romance
“To be reminded that she was property in the same breath as feeling Toven Heart’s mouth and tongue on her skin was… a mess.”
This is a slow burn.
I like the buildup, and anything much faster would absolutely not work under these circumstances, but it is a slow burn.
Throughout the book, we’re given flashbacks to Briony’s time in school- notably of her interactions with Toven, who we are told a few times is at least on the table as an option for her inevitable arranged marriage. And that he is also probably the least awful of her realistic options.
In the flashbacks, Briony finds him snobby and antagonizing (which he is), though we get a few scenes of him at least not being as willing to sexually harass her as most of his friends.
What a feminist.
“I am accustomed to having the finest thing in the room, after all.”
All of this culminates, after The Auction, in Briony being confused as to why she’s even there, and untimately reaching the conclusion that she’s collateral if things go wrong.
Over the course of the book, however, it becomes clear to the reader (if not the characters) that there is more than begrudging cooperation going on between them. Something that’s accelerated by them constantly needing to sell the act that they’re “going at it like rabbits”, as one character puts it.
“Is your confidence so low you must describe your conquests in such detail to your friends, Toven?”
“When the ‘conquest’ is the Princess of Evermore, yes.”
If you like the combination of fake relationships, forced proximity, enemies to lovers, slow burns, and characters in almost comical levels of denial (Briony literally sees one of Toven’s sexual fantasies of her and writes it off in about the most clinical way she possibly can), you’ll have fun with this.
Other Random Thoughts
- I praised the magic system earlier but I do have to nitpick the fact that (as with most fantasy, in all fairness) healing spells seem to fix everything except problems in childbirth. We’re told Briony’s mother bled out while delivering the twins, and if you think about it for more than a few seconds, it’s a little ridiculous that magic can fix Toven’s boiling blood and disintegrating bones but not a placental abruption.
- Toven’s familiar is a gray fox named Vesper. Nothing to really add there, I just love her.
- Toven’s parents, Serena and Orion Hearst are my favorite characters. They’re the perfect blend of deeply devoted to family and pragmatic to the point of murder and villainy, and I loved both of them.
In Conclusion…
If you want fantasy romance that doesn’t have fae, or shove the word “mate” in your face ten million times, you should read this. Yes it’s technically fanfic with the serial numbers filed off, but it’s done very well. The book stands fine on it’s own, and a decent chunk of it is toned down from the original story if you’re worried about that. It’s a good book. That deserves to get marketed on it’s own merit.
