Review: Thornbound

Thornbound by Stephanie Burgis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Starts very strong, with a motivated protagonist in a dynamic situation, one of the best ways to begin a novel. For me, it didn't quite sustain that momentum, and there were one or two things I didn't believe along the way, but it's a sound piece of work nonetheless.

The characters are varied and distinct, and have a good combination of flaws and strengths. The irritating man with no social skills is fully believable, and so is the woman whose manipulation and insinuation go far beyond cattiness to outright malevolence. The characters who firmly believe that the protagonist, Cassandra, is being selfish and foolish in establishing a school to educate women in magic, when that's been the province of men for 17 centuries, are believable in their opinions; they think that this will undermine the whole social order by destroying the balance between the matriarchy that rules the country and the male magicians that support them, and that it will inevitably lead to dominance by men, as in every other country in the world. I wouldn't be too surprised if the author had taken inspiration from the arguments of 19th-century campaigners against votes for women.

There is a small, subtle - I might even say quibbling - worldbuilding misstep, or it seems that way to me. The country is called "Angland," implying an Anglo-Saxon conquest, which doesn't completely square with an uninterrupted 1700-year government established by the Britannic Celtic leader Boudicca. Also in worldbuilding, there are several characters who appear (by their names and descriptions) to be of at least partial South Asian descent, implying a British Empire that includes India, but that's never made explicit; they don't appear to face any discrimination, at least not from the characters we see, but that's not to say there is none. Otherwise, it's the same premise I've seen done by various other authors: Britain borders on the fae realm in some way, magic exists, no more worldbuilding is considered necessary.

The plot I felt was a bit of a muddle, but that's partly because Cassandra's life is a bit of a muddle. She's newly married, but her husband was called away from their wedding breakfast to fight fires for the Boudiccate (the government), which is his duty as a magical officer; however, they've kept him away from her for six weeks, in an attempt to make him resign and/or pressure her to give up on her idea of a magic school for women. She's been operating on little sleep during this time, getting the school ready. The school is just at the point of opening, and the Boudiccate drops a surprise inspection team on her, including an old enemy who would vote against her even if doing so involved setting herself on fire, and an old family friend who seems to be under some constraint to also vote against her, and may also genuinely believe it's a bad idea that will crash society. Cassandra has hired a weather wizard to cover the one subject she can't teach herself, and he's a huge pain as a human being. And on top of that, someone has made a dangerous bargain with the fae who inhabit the nearby wood. Also, one member of the inspection team - the junior member - is secretly engaged to one of the new school's students, and because it's a rule that to join the Boudiccate you have to be married to a mage, they both have a lot at stake in the success of the school, but at the same time it's going to be difficult to defy her seniors and vote in favour of the school, and her single vote won't swing it. (Same-sex marriage isn't a problem; female mages are.)

It's possibly a bit too much plot compressed into too small a space, and I felt it could have been given more room to breathe.

On that must-be-married-to-a-mage issue, there's something I need to discuss in spoiler tags, which seemed too convenient to me. (view spoiler)[The protagonist's sister Amy is married to a non-mage, and hasn't been able to follow her late mother-in-law into the Boudiccate as a result. As part of the resolution of the book, a newly-disgraced member of the Boudiccate has to resign - it's unclear to me exactly what, out of several possible things, will be announced as the reason, but it's something that will reduce her standing - and apparently she gets a vote on her exit to choose her successor, which is going to go to Amy. And this is apparently all that's needed to get Amy the position - it's spoken of as a done deal, despite the fact that she's married to a non-mage, which was previously presented as a huge problem, and will be going in with only the sponsorship of someone who is having to resign in disgrace, and is related to and openly supports Cassandra, who everyone thinks is a dangerous radical. I didn't buy it. (hide spoiler)]

A book with imperfections, then, but with a solid central core, and it just makes the Silver tier of my annual recommendation list. I've read the next novella in the series previously, and I do enjoy the world and its inhabitants, and will probably read more about them in due course.

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