Bitterthorn: A sapphic Gothic romance inspired by classic fairytales

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A moody and stylish Gothic tale that feels both fresh and timeless - a masterful meditation on grief, loneliness, and terrible love. Talking about better; in the beginning of the book, I really hoped that the housekeeper whose name is Wolf will turn out to be a real wolf and that the servants turn into wild animals at night, but alas, there was actually a village. The first woman to go with the Witch, on arriving at the castle, Mina feels “trapped in a prison of my own foolish making”.

All of this is coupled with a senseless need for approval and parental love from those who have never truly loved her (as she never misses a chance to remind us), memories of her deceased mother who is poorly described as depressed or bipolar (it's not clear to me), and the disasters faced when trying to "help" a family of one of the previous companions that I won't even try to describe. This had all the similar vibes of a story by Naomi Novik or Ava Reid so if you like their work, I’d highly recommend this. I say this because it is both very rare for me to read almost an entire book in a single day and to cry whilst reading, but this is what happened with Bitterthorn.I'm just not sure I loved the 'I can fix her vibes', which I would have been fine with if this was a story of dark obsession and toxicity, but I got the impression that this was meant to be a healthy relationship and idk about that. Both classic and novel, melancholy and tenderly wrought, Bitterthorn crackles with passion and warmth like a fire on a long winter night. Stranded with her darkly alluring captor, the mystery of what happened to the previous companions draws Mina into the heart of a terrifying secret that could save her life, or end it.

You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.Kat Dunn examines the power of loneliness and isolation and cruelty in making monsters of us, using a backdrop of a sweeping dark fairytale, but also the power of insistent, honest love that recognises the truths of each other. Like Mina seemed genuinely upset when the Witch got mad at her, even if it was a front, but then a couple pages later we are in love and stuff again? The book was set over a year, but because we spent weeks in passing where their relationship developed, it felt much shorter so the fear to lovers thing felt quicker than I would have liked. I absolutely loved Kat Dunn’s Battalion of the Dead series so this was one of my most anticipated releases.

She’s written about mental health for Mind and the Guardian , and worked as a translator for Japanese television. Bitterthorn tugged on the threads of my heartstrings until I had nothing left to give it but my soul. A moody and stylish Gothic tale that feels both fresh and timeless – a masterful meditation on grief, loneliness, and terrible love. Mina (who reads like Cinderella, Belle and Aurora rolled into a single person), is such a kindhearted character whose eagerness to feel a little less of an outsider in her own home made me love her immediately. She is afraid because she hears wolfs howling around the wood, but then she scolds herself because it's much more probable that she'll freeze to death than that the wolves eat her.Kat Dunn has spun a deliciously dark fairy tale full of the agony and ecstasy of longing and desire, as well as celebrating the power of resilience and inner strength. The build-up seemed a little bit slow, but then the main character joined the witch and I was ready for things to unfold. This is the first book by Dunn I’ve ever picked up, but given how thoroughly I devoured this, it’s certainly not going to be the last! Character names omitted to help reduce spoilers)It’s perfect for the Autumn season - a gothic witchy read with lots of descriptive scene building to really develop the atmosphere.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. I was hooked from the first chapter, pulled into the world and wanting to know what would happen, and how it would all end. The beginning was great, the atmosphere, the witch, the idea of the sacrifice, the castle, and everything else. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Among the twisted trees, she “felt power in my independence: far, far safer to be alone than to want and be unwanted”.I suppose it has elements of Beauty and The Beast and Rumpelstiltskin but the love story here is uniquely different. I also thought the end was a bit corny and didn't really understand the 3rd act conflict since I thought it was pretty obvious what was happening to the companions?