I loved every bit of this book! Perfect from beginning to end!

Funny, poignant and with all the fairy tales and romance and friendship and chosen family you could want. What an amazing tale. It made me love reading more than I already do!

T. Kingfisher always writes exactly what I want to read, and “Nettle & Bone” is no exception. A fairy tale for grown-ups (especially those who’ve had life take an unexpected turn, or took a bit of time finding their way). Absolutely recommend.

A lot of fun to read

A short book - pretty good but it felt like the story wasn’t fully built out

I had a great time following along this not-nun, her mission, and her exploration of life. The lines read well, with not a hint of pretension but a whole lot of heart. I’d love to read this again for the first time- but I’m not sure that I’ll forget it well enough to, and that’s my only complaint and highest compliment. How good to be adjacent to the Lady of Grackles.

“Nettle & Bone” s another heartwarming fantasy novel by T. Kingfisher, which is the pseudonym Ursula Vernon uses for her works for adults. It takes place in a medieval alternate world that features magic, royal houses, and various gods. It’s not clear to me if is this is the same alternative world setting as some of her other fantasies, if so it’s not obvious. This novel begins with a woman known as Marra who is the youngest princess of a small seaside kingdom. Her oldest sister has been sent off in a political marriage to prince of the large and powerful Northern Kingdom. When this sister dies unexpectedly, her middle sister is sent to marry the prince. Marra is sent off to the Convent of Our Lady of Grackles to keep her out of the way. Things begin changing for the worse, and Marra learns some horrible things about the prince. She determines she has to somehow save her sister. She begins a journey seeking a means to do so. She seeks a consultation of the most powerful of the dust-wives, who hold power over the dead. She constructs a dog from bones, and returns it to un-life as part of her tests. She rescues a disgraced warrior from the goblin market. Then she seeks out her own godmother. With this motley band, she sets off to bring down the king of the most powerful kingdom she knows… Once again, Ms. Veron has written a fantasy that has many elements. Certainly, there are are some horrific things going on in this story, but it is also a romance, and a work of high fantasy. It’s a uplifting novel, which has warm characters, dry humor, and a positive outlook. This seems to be true of most of her fantasies, and I like the recipe!

This was wonderful! A valiant quest meets a princess meets an undoable task meets a dust-wife. Marra, youngest of three princesses, is not good at being a princess. The machinations of her parents and family are confusing to her and she would rather embroider. She becomes a ward in a convent as surety for her kingdom as her two sisters are married to a larger kingdom’s prince, one after the other ala Henry VIII. Marra discovers her sister’s mistreatment by her husband and is confused why no one will fix an obvious wrong. Thus the story truly begins as Marra seeks help and finds friends in such places as a charnel pit and a goblin fair. Probably aimed for an adult audience, but I believe teens would appreciate the wonder and truth of this tale. A bit graphic with discussion of cannibals, but no worse than a game of HALO.

I love this book! The characters are so wonderfully real, and their interactions are so vividly complex, I immediately wanted to transplant several of them into my D&D campaign to both fascinate and terrify my player’s characters. This has put the author in my list of “will not hesitate to read anything with this name on it” mental list!