Kristin Cashore

Seven Kingdoms — (2008-2012) Young adult. Fire is a prequel. Ms Cashore is currently writing a sequel. Publisher: Katsa has been able to kill a man with her bare hands since she was eight — she’s a Graceling, one of the rare people in her land born with an extreme skill. As niece of the king, she should be able to live a life of privilege, but Graced as she is with killing, she is forced to work as the king’s thug. When she first meets Prince Po, Graced with combat skills, Katsa has no hint of how her life is about to change. She never expects to become Po’s friend. She never expects to learn a new truth about her own Grace — or about a terrible secret that lies hidden far away... a secret that could destroy all seven kingdoms with words alone. With elegant, evocative prose and a cast of unforgettable characters, debut author Kristin Cashore creates a mesmerizing world, a death-defying adventure, and a heart-racing romance that will consume you, hold you captive, and leave you wanting more.

Graceling

Kristin Cashore’s Graceling is a wonderfully surefooted novel that pleases from start to finish. It is set in the land of the Seven Kingdoms, where some (Gracelings) are born with a particular talent ranging in scope and usefulness: mind-reading, fighting, cooking, climbing trees, etc. The main character, Lady Katsa, has a fighter/killer Grace which she usually employs (rarely happily) in the service of her uncle, King Randa as his “muscle.” The story opens with a bang (actually some flying kicks, savage punches, useless swordplay, and so on) as Katsa uses her Grace for her own purpose, performing a daring rescue of an old man kept prisoner by another king. On the mission, she meets another Graceling fighter, Prince Po (son of yet a third king).

The rest of Graceling explores several plot avenues. One is Katsa’s growing revulsion at how Randa forces her to use her Grace and her fitful attempts to control her Grace and her anger. Another is the mystery of why the prisoner was taken and who was behind it. A third is the deepening relationship between Katsa and Prince Po as they travel together. And yet another is the mystery surrounding yet another of the kings of the Seven Kingdoms.

On the surface, we’ve seen much of this before. The singular magical “talent” some are born with (LeGuin’s Powers series is another good exploration of this relatively common idea), the awkward burgeoning relationship between two young characters, the character fighting against his/her own powers, a spunky young princess. But truth is there isn’t a lot of wholly new out there; what differentiates the very good, good, middling, and bad, is what you do with the usual ingredients. Kristin Cashore, it turns out, is an excellent cook. There isn’t a misstep or bad taste anywhere here, making Graceling one of the better reads of the year.

The plot is compelling throughout with excellent pacing — not overly long, no abrupt shifts or lagging sections, lots of tense moments but not piled up one atop the other, good breaks of humor and more quiet moments, mysteries that are resolved at the right moments, twists and turns that connect logically and are well set up.

The characters are strong in their own right — sharply defined, individual, complex (Katsa more than Po but he is fully three-dimensional and gets his own special complexities toward the latter parts of the book) and as compelling as personalities as the plot is for tension and mystery. Their characters are revealed in a variety of equally skillful ways: interior monologue, well-crafted dialogue that doesn’t feel crafted, actions both subtle and large.

Side characters are also nicely sketched in efficient strokes: Katsa’s servant woman, Randa’s son Raffin, Po’s brother. The villain is a bit abstract and amorphous, but this is more due to plot requirements than poor writing and its very abstractness adds to its horror.

The relationship between Katsa and Po is also well done — handled in much more adult fashion than we usually see, skipping over the cookie-cutter “let’s instantly hate each other, bicker endless and falsely for half the book, then resent falling in love and bicker some more over that, then give in and be a couple” form so prevalent. It feels more real than 90 percent of the relationships in fantasy books.

Beyond the big picture of plot and character, there are many lovely moments throughout Graceling: wonderful moments of dialogue, of interior thought, of description (though less so) and some great set scenes. Graceling exhilarates in both the large and small. It wraps up as a fully independent story, and there are two “companion” novels (not strict sequels but set in the same world and very roughly around the same time) planned, one of which (Fire) comes out this fall. I’m looking forward to both. Very highly recommended. —Bill Capossere

Graceling

I had heard the buzz surrounding Kristin Cashore's Graceling and my curiosity was piqued. Sitting down to read, I hoped that it hadn't been over-hyped, but was pleasantly surprised to find myself reading a fast-paced, intriguing fantasy novel with a wonderfully real and sympathetic female protagonist — which is rarer than you might think.

The world in which Katsa lives has amidst its population people known as Gracelings: individuals with extraordinary, but rather arbitrary talents. Identified by their mismatched eyes, their gifts can range from mind reading to super-sensory hearing to simply being a strong swimmer. The Gracelings are feared by their neighbors and exploited by their kings, and Katsa is no exception, particularly since her own Grace is the skill of killing.

She lives under the command of her uncle, King Randa of the Middluns, working as his trained assassin and hit-woman, dealing out threats and injuries to anyone who displeases him. She despises his rule and undermines it in the only way she knows how: by forming an underground resistance in the hopes of secretly combating the destructive behavior of the seven kings.

It is during a rescue mission in a neighboring kingdom that she meets a fellow Graceling — a young man who proves himself a match to her combat skills. When she gets a proper introduction she discovers he's Prince Greening of Lienid (though he prefers the nickname "Po"), and the grandson of the man who she was sent to rescue — though why his grandfather was being held hostage in the first place is a mystery still to be solved.

Learning to accept the friendship of this strange young man and to free herself from the control of her uncle is what leads Katsa on a mission out into the world to find an answer to the strange behavior of King Leck of Monsea. Believing him to be connected to his grandfather's kidnapping, Po suspects that the man may be a Graceling, in possession of a terrifying Grace that allows him to perform heinous acts without endangering his benevolent reputation. But how do you combat such a Grace? As Katsa and Po near his kingdom they realize the extent of Leck's power and find themselves protecting his only daughter as the winter sets in, learning at the same time that there's more to both their Graces than they've been lead to believe.

All the threads come together in a satisfying whole: the mystery becomes an adventure which becomes a survival story as the book goes on, with Katsa and Po's growing romance woven throughout. But Graceling is essentially the story of one young woman's struggle to assert herself in a world in which she's treated as an outsider. It is unashamedly feminist, but not in the obnoxious "women are good, men are bad" kind of way; rather Katsa's journey leads her to connect and form friendships with various men in her life, and come to terms with her fears of love, marriage and commitment before finding her own definition of those terms. It's a breath of fresh air in the young adult genre, which seems to be increasingly full of passive, insipid heroines who are content to sit back and wait for their love interest to save them. Here, Katsa and Po are equals — not physically (there it's Katsa who has the advantage), but in characterization. What Katsa lacks, Po provides and visa-versa. It's probably one of the healthiest and most realistic relationships portrayed in a young adult novel since Ella Enchanted, in which love is based on common interests, mutual respect, and friendship.

It's not perfect, however. The world-building is a little clumsy and certain names, such as Princess Bitterblue or Po, grate (the latter is a nickname for an even weirder name, but which inevitably brings to mind the red Teletubby and Kung Fu Panda). The names of the countries are simply variations of north, south, east and west, and cities are named for their rulers, which would surely play havoc with mapmakers — you'd have to update them every time a new power took the throne. The biggest problem is how quickly and relatively easily Leck is dispatched, for after building him up as a frightening villain with an equally dangerous Grace, the final confrontation is disappointingly anti-climactic.

But the characters are wonderfully three-dimensional and vivid, and the concept of the Gracelings and the way in which they operate in the world is the book's most intriguing feature. Out of interest I have read some negative reviews; though I admit this book isn't perfect, I couldn't disagree more that Katsa is a Mary Sue or that Po is an Edward Cullen knock-off. Regardless of what her "superpowers" allow her to do, Katsa has plenty of very real pain, fear and a lack of self-esteem to work through, and her growth throughout the novel into a woman who is in command of her own destiny (particularly when she grasps the true nature of her Grace) is immensely rewarding. Po is never patronizing or over-protective toward Katsa. Rather, he treats her with respect, trust and understanding whilst struggling with the limitations of his own Grace and how it affects his relationships with other people.

At times you can tell that Graceling is Cashore's first novel, particularly in regards to the sometimes stilted style and prose, but as a first novel it bodes very well for any future books from this author. —Rebecca Fisher

Fire

Fire follows Kristin Cashore’s debut novel Graceling, which garnered quite a lot of praise from reviewers, including this one. A coming-of-age tale set in the Seven Kingdoms, where some are born with a particular “grace” or talent, Graceling focused on Katsa, whose grace seemingly is death. Many readers loved Katsa’s fiercely strong and independent character, as well her compatriots Po and Princess Bitterblue; loved to hate the creepy villain; and found the idea of Graces intriguing and ripe with potential. By the end, it was clear there was more to tell about this land and these characters.

So what does Kristin Cashore do for a follow-up? She writes a story set decades earlier in a different, but neighboring land about wholly different people (save one, and that appearance is relatively brief, though significant). I have to admit, I was already on Kristin Cashore’s side with Fire just because she didn’t take the familiarly easy road to book two — a simple sequel with the same old characters using their same talents to deal with similar, if superficially, different dangers (you authors know who you are). But while the characters and setting are new, the story has many of Graceling’s strengths and even improves in some ways on the first book, though it also has its flaws.

Fire is set in the kingdom of the Dells, a land of “monsters”: beautifully colored, vital, and often aggressively predacious versions of typical animal species. The main character, Fire, is the last human monster, whose beauty fogs the mind of humans (especially men) with powerful emotions, and drives them to desire her, please her, rape her, kill her. She also has the ability to manipulate minds with her own, though strong wills can resist her. Her dangerous beauty (she can hardly ever uncover even a strand of her hair) and potentially dangerous ability forces her into a life of nearly total loneliness, broken only by her best friend and informal lover Archer, and Archer’s father Brocker.

The other barrier between Fire and people is that her father, who had the same mind-manipulating ability, was a sadistic, depraved, and brutal figure. He was an adviser to the former King Nax, himself somewhat deranged and depraved. By the time they died, the two of them had driven the Dells to near-ruin, and now the kingdom is barely being held together by young King Nash and his brother and army commander Prince Brigan, who have to deal with potential rebels, an almost-sure to happen civil war, and a mysterious new threat from beyond the Dells (that will be familiar to readers of Graceling). Against the backdrop of these events, Fire’s seclusion — part forced upon her and part self-imposed/desired — starts to shatter, and she must find her way to a sense of herself and her place in the world.

Fire has some clear connections to Katsa of Graceling: both are strong women whose talents (Fire’s mind-manipulation, Katsa’s death-dealing) make them objects of fear to others, and make them terrified of themselves and of how their gifts might be abused or exploited. However, there are also interesting and clear distinctions. Katsa’s talent was physical, while Fire’s is mental. Katsa’s was more conscious — she could choose to kill or not. Fire can choose to use her mental ability or, as has been the rule for most of her life so far, not to use it, but she has no control over how her beauty affects others: the terrible things it makes them want to do or attempt to do, the danger it brings her and also them, the shame it brings them afterward (if they haven’t been killed to protect Fire), their fear at her mere presence.

Fire’s coming-of-age is also more adult: she isn’t so much an adolescent trying to figure out who she is as much as an already fully-formed personality, first trying to remain in her lonely yet stable life, then trying to see how her old self fits or not in the fast-changing world around her. The romance is more adult as well: it's more slowly drawn out, more rife with complexities, shadings, fears, and insecurities, and more intertwined with lives beyond those of the two potential lovers.

Certainly the strongest aspect of the book is Fire’s characterization, with her gradual opening to the world and the realistic portrayal of its glacial pace, complete with backslips. She’s a character one comes to care for and about, and is enough to carry the book. King Nash, Prince Brigan and Archer aren’t quite as fully drawn. They aren’t two-dimensional and have their complexities — Archer’s semi-unrequited love for Fire and his propensity for other women, Nash’s inability to control himself around Fire, Brigan’s hatred of what the times force him to become — but the complexities feel a bit singular and one-note and are maybe “announced” too often, rather than shown in more subtle fashion. Even side characters, nicely drawn as they are, tend toward this pattern of having a single bad act or aspect.

But none of this detracts from enjoying their presence or significance to the plot. The plot itself is less action-oriented than Graceling, focusing more as it does on Fire’s internal struggles and political intrigue, but it is mostly compelling. The weakest aspect is probably the single link to Graceling, the non-native threat to the Dells, but I won’t go into more detail so as not to spoil things, save to say that this plot thread never felt fully thought out or integrated. The same can be said to some extent for the world-building: the Dells felt a bit thin, more like a crafted backdrop made for the story’s purpose (like those “towns” in Westerns) than a fully realized world unto itself. I would have liked a richer sense of how the whole thing worked, but again, it didn’t really detract from the story.

Before I read Fire, I already wanted Kristin Cashore to succeed, because of her choice to ignore the easy path to a sequel and introduce a whole new land and group of characters. Fire — both the book and the eponymous character — certainly succeeds. —Bill Capossere

Bitterblue

The truth of the lives of my people is never in the papers that cross my desk... 

Back in 2008 I read and thoroughly enjoyed Kristin Cashore's Graceling, particularly for its protagonist Katsa and her struggle to find agency and freedom in a world that seemed determined to deny her both things. It's quite a common trait in fantasy fiction for authors to believe that they've written a "strong female character" by giving her a sword and an attitude problem — but Cashore really seemed to understand what readers want in a heroine: real strengths, real flaws, real character development, and a growing sense of assurance in herself. As such, I ranked Cashore alongside Tamora Pierce and Garth Nix in delivering truly worthwhile female protagonists to a YA readership.

Admittedly, I never got around to reading Fire in 2011, but I was first in line for Bitterblue, knowing that the potential for a riveting follow-up to Katsa's story was evident from the threads left over from Cashore's first book. An important but relatively minor character in Graceling was the young Princess Bitterblue, the daughter of a murdered queen and a psychopathic king. Here she takes centre-stage as the young Queen Bitterblue of Monsea, struggling to pull her kingdom back from the brink of collapse after her father's thirty-five year reign of terror.

So far she's been doing well; with a team of advisors she's spent the last eight years embroiled in a "forward-thinking" program, designed to heal the country from the memory of King Leck's mind-manipulating abilities. Yet in the attempt to eradicate Leck's legacy, many of his darker activities are in danger of remaining forever shrouded in mystery.

Feeling stifled by secrets and paperwork, Bitterblue takes it upon herself to sneak out into the city at night, finding that the lives of the people are very different from what she's been lead to believe. Falling into company with two young thieves called Saf and Teddy, Bitterblue strikes up a friendship that opens her eyes to the true nature of the "forward thinking" ideology: that it involves a steadfast denial of past atrocities and the refusal to remunerate the people's losses. Those who are unwilling to let the past die so easily are known as "truthseekers," and yet it is these people who are systematically being hunted down and killed by unknown assailants who fear... what exactly?

It becomes increasingly clear to Bitterblue that the only way to heal properly is to revisit the past — but there are those who are just as determined to prevent her from uncovering the truth about her father's horrific cruelty.

The real joy of Bitterblue is in its unique story. Unlike Graceling, which in many ways was a straightforward adventure, Bitterblue's tale unfolds more like a mystery, with plenty of court intrigue and unexplained oddities strewn throughout. As puzzles and clues stack up over the course of the story, Cashore manages to construct a rather unsettling atmosphere of mistrust and disconcertment. As she tries to untangle the lives around her, Bitterblue ends up wondering who she can really trust and whether or not she herself is on the verge of madness. A situation like this inevitably puts the reader on edge, for Bitterblue's goal is not to find a treasure or make a wonderful discovery, but to uncover something that even she is not sure she wants to expose.

It's not a case of "something is rotten in the state of Denmark," but rather "something is broken in the kingdom of Monsea," and Cashore has a pertinent statement to make about the nature of abusive relationships. Here the abuse happens on a nation-wide scale, in which hundreds of people were controlled, tortured and killed by a single man with the devastating gift of mind-control, but still the message is the same: that the victim's pain does not go away when the perpetrator does. The scars remain, a great deal of healing is required, and there is no "right way" to deal with it. Many other fantasy novels would end with the defeat of the evil king — but Bitterblue's story begins with Leck's death, for her task is to try to recover from the long shadow that he left behind.

As such, there are several key ideas that Cashore scatters throughout the book: themes of lying, done for necessity, convenience or pleasure, and the act of touching and being touched, whether it be self-inflicted cuts or gentler acts such as kissing or having one's hair brushed. Secrets abound, thus explaining the recurring motifs of cyphers and keys (even on the cover art), as well as the search for truth amongst the relatively harmless embellishment of storytelling to the horrific mind-rape that Leck inflicted on his people. Cashore shows a deft hand in linking these themes together in her exploration of the after-effects of abuse, and having thrown several subplots into the air, manages to juggle them all without ever losing sight of her main story.

If there is one flaw, it's in Cashore's world-building. I've long held to the principle that every novel needs three basic components working together to create a good read: story, character and world. This is especially true of fantasy fiction, for the author usually has to present a setting that is entirely fictional, and thus must work extra hard to sustain. Despite the wonderfully vivid characters and the complex story, the realm of Monsea never felt that real to me, and I couldn't get a fix on the feel of the place. At best, I'd describe it as a generic medieval kingdom, and so I knock off half a star for its lack of depth.

As mentioned, I had not read Fire before Bitterblue, but it made little difference to the reading experience until the very end — perhaps I would have found the arrival of a particular character more appreciable had I known their history (no doubt chronicled in Fire). That said, I'd recommend not reading Bitterblue before Graceling. Not only will the inclusion of characters such as Katsa and Po have little impact for those who are unfamiliar with them, but the concept of the Gracelings is assumed to already be known to the reader.

And just for fun, the book is decorated throughout with beautiful woodprints by Ian Schoenherr (who also illustrated Philip Pullman's Lyra’s Oxford and Once Upon a Time in the North) as well as a glossary as written by the rather disgruntled librarian featured in the story itself (who considers himself far too busy to be attending to such matters). Both are nice ways to keep track of the various components in this ever-expanding world. —Rebecca Fisher

Bitterblue

Bitterblue is the third book in Kristin Cashore’s series that began with Graceling and continued with Fire, both excellent novels (I gave them 5 stars and 4.5 stars respectively). Bitterblue is not quite as good, but the drop-off is slight, resulting in another strong read and a more than satisfying continuation.

Bitterblue picks up some years after Graceling. The murderous, tyrannical King Leck has been dead for years and now Bitterblue, as Queen of Monsea, is trying to put her kingdom back together. Her first step toward becoming a true queen, however, is when she leaves her castle refuge and steps out into the streets of her city to engage with real people. Soon, she’s finding things aren’t quite what she thought they were. Her attempts to find the truth and to fix what is broken take place in a world suddenly grim with conspiracy, madness, confusion, mistrust, and murder.

I gave Cashore a lot of credit in my review of Fire for not rushing out with an immediate sequel to the hit Graceling. Instead, she revisited the same world via a book set in a different time, a different land, and focused on different characters. She deserves a lot of similar credit for the core premise of Bitterblue. Though a more conventional sequel in that it returns us to familiar lands, times, and characters, she still takes some risks here. One is that while main characters from Graceling appear in Bitterblue (Katsa, Po, a few others), these appearances are really quite minor. Also, rather than picking up immediately afterward, we’ve jumped forward a good chunk of years.

But by far my favorite aspect of Bitterblue’s premise is that rather than give us an entirely new adventure, the adventure here is dealing with the consequences of the evil that’s been vanquished. The defeat of evil is a long process, and killing the bad guy is just the first — albeit necessary — step. It isn’t all “ding dong the dark lord’s dead” and let’s go back to a happy home (think “scouring of the Shire”). Bitterblue doesn’t get to jump on a horse and head off on another quest, she doesn’t get to be distracted by the rise of another dark lord, or the prior dark lord’s ticked-off minion, or the sudden arrival of some malevolent magical talisman. She has to deal with the tragic reality that evil doesn’t disappear with the evildoer. It ripples out through time and society and continues to warp and distort people’s lives long after the villain has been killed or deposed. And cleaning it up is a messy, ugly, and yes, “bitter” business. It’s a concept too few fantasy authors explore, so props to Cashore for doing so and doing it so well.

The “evil,” by the way, is pretty dark and grim, and Cashore does not shy away from describing it, especially toward the end. There are some seriously disturbing images and concepts in this book and for that reason, I don’t advise it for the lower end of YA readers.

The process of trying to recover from Leck’s evil is even more confusing because Leck’s power was mind-control and because he was such a control freak — leaving no records behind, burning or rewriting histories, disappearing hundreds (if not more) people. How does one determine “truth” in a world where people cannot even trust their memories? If they even have memories. How does one apportion “blame” or “guilt” in a world where people could be made to do something against their will? How does one make “reparations” for a lost son or daughter, spouse or parent? For a generation of forced ignorance? These are tough, complicated questions and they don’t leave one confident that there are going to be a lot of clear-cut answers to them.

The questions are complicated further by events outside Bitterblue’s kingdom, where tyrannical kings are being deposed, or threatened with being deposed, by groups of nobles or even, gasp, the people themselves (both with some help from Bitterblue’s disruptive friends — Katsa, Po, and the rest of the “Council”). Bitterblue wants to fix her kingdom, but should it even be “hers”? Should it even be a “kingdom”? More credit is due to Cashore for basing her book on such sophisticated, serious questions.

Many of these questions, it should be pointed out, have their real world analogs. It is not solely the realm of “fantasy” where leaders and governments have mass murdered and “disappeared” their own people, have rewritten their histories, have destroyed traditions and whole cultures. It is not solely in the realm of “fantasy” that countries have rid themselves of such leaders only to struggle with the legacy of what is left behind: how to deal with those involved, how to deal with guilt and punishment (“truth committees”), how to find out what happened to the disappeared.

Along with its underlying themes, another major strength of Bitterblue is, well, Bitterblue. This is, as is often the case in YA, a coming-of-age story. Bitterblue must come into her place as queen but also as a young woman. Cashore does an excellent job of being patient with this process, showing it in all its glacial movement forward, with all its one step forward, two steps back sense of “progress.” The romantic angle, a typical element of YA, is predictable but handled in unpredictable fashion to some extent, is handled in a more sophisticated manner than usual, and thankfully takes a back seat to the non-romantic aspects of Bitterblue’s growth.

The plot, as one might expect in a story about mind control, loss of memory, and conspiracy atop conspiracy is a bit convoluted, perhaps overly so at times, though I had no complaints in that regard. It doesn’t have a strong or sharply-edged sense of narrative motion, but I think that is quite purposeful and also quite appropriate. Things circle around, drop into dead ends; there’s a sense of illogic or randomness throughout. There is a mystery (several actually) at the heart of Bitterblue, but I don’t think one should expect to read it like a usual mystery, looking for cause and effect, looking to track one clue to the next to the logical conclusion. I’d love to say more about this, because I actually think it’s a subtle strength of the novel, but to do so I fear might give too much away.

Despite the sense that a sort of fog hangs over the plot, it moves along smoothly and quickly. I finished the book, roughly 550 pages in my ARC version, in two quite enthralled sittings, never feeling it lagged. Sure, if I pored over it I could have probably edited it down, but it didn’t feel like it needed it, as so many books do. It was a 500+ page book that read like a 300+ page book. (My wife, who grabbed my copy before I even did, thanks to my being in the middle of another book, found it equally captivating and read in a handful of sittings, staying up well past her bedtime to keep reading.)

The few complaints I have are relatively minor compared to the book’s strengths. Many of the side characters, and even some semi-major ones, were a bit flat or overly familiar. A few of the plot points were familiar as well, such as the prince/princess disguising themselves to head out into the city scene, though this was a less frequent problem. Characters were a bit too obtuse at some points, especially with regard to one particular individual/plot point (some characters have an excuse for being obtuse; that’s not what I’m referring to here). The prose is pretty effortless and engaging throughout, but I can’t say I was ever wowed by the language (not that such a thing happens often, so as I said, a minor complaint). As with the other books, the world-building is thin. Cashore has some strong descriptive passages in the book — art, for instance, plays a pretty big role and she does a nice job conveying sculptures, wall hangings, and the like — but the actual world never felt fully present or concrete to me: the city, the people in the city, the kingdom, the larger world beyond the kingdom. Finally, the more direct connections to the prior books at time felt a bit tacked on or clumsily integrated, or maybe just a bit rushed.

I thoroughly enjoyed Bitterblue from the beginning, but the novel really finds its power in the final 100 pages. From here, the novel packs an emotional and philosophical wallop. I’d say the first 450 pages is well deserving of a four-star rating, but I’d give its final 100 five. It leaves you satisfied, moved, disturbed, and uncomfortable. That’s my kind of book. —Bill Capossere