Written by Cheyenne K. Heckermann
TW: Sexual Assault, Abuse
Melissa Marr’s Of Maidens and Swords is a collection of eight fantasy short stories, four of which are standalone. The other four take place as part of book series she has written, including a return to the Wicked Lovely series she’s best known for. Of the first four, three are inspired by fairytales.
“Of Roses and Kings” is inspired by Alice in Wonderland. Beatrice falls to Wonderland, taking pleasure in entertaining and challenging Alice, the new Red Queen. She triumphs in freeing Alice from her required king, assuming the role herself to be Alice’s official and chosen lover. “The Nameless” inspired by Little Red Riding Hood, takes place in a village of women defending themselves from wolves, a specific group of men from an enemy village. One woman was taken and assaulted by the wolves, returned pregnant, and disappeared again after giving birth to her daughter, Victorie, who the protagonist now trains. The protagonist experiences a similar experience but lives to raise her own daughter and plots to attack the wolves rather than just defending against them. “Knee Deep in the Sea” follows Isabel, personal assistant to a perverse filmmaker, on Orkney to make a documentary on seals, only to find bodies of murdered men on the beach. When her boss prompts her to find a local to film for the documentary, Isabel finds Margaret, who reveals herself as a hybrid of selchie and finman. Margaret has been killing distasteful men from off the island. The final stand-alone tale is “The Devil’s Due,” a retelling of Bluebeard. Adelaide works as a pirate to take care of her mother and sisters, until her mother dies and her sisters disappear after marrying, only to find their husbands were the same man, Captain Hayes. She plans to marry him, learn what happened to her sisters and the other missing girls, and then murder him. This captain’s preference is for girls without wealth or brothers to make it harder for loved ones to seek him. She and her crew defeat Captain Hayes. They discover most of the missing women are kept locked away, alive.
The next four are primarily part of Marr’s Wicked Lovely series, and the other a Graveminder prequel. The Graveminder prequel, “Changing Guards,” sets up the events that lead to the first novel. The three Wicked Lovely stories fill in details of a few main characters’ pasts across a prequel and two sequels. “Love Hurts” takes place after the initial Wicked Lovely series, and reveals that Irial, a fairy who is the former Dark King and the current representation of Chaos, had children with a human lover a long time ago. Ashlinn, the Summer Queen who was once human and ended a curse on many fairies, is Irial’s great granddaughter through his daughter. Irial reveals this relationship to Aislinn and expands on it in “Summer Bound,” while focusing on the happiness of Aislinn’s court and the revelation of Irial’s antagonistic son appearing. “Winter Dreams” is the prequel, focusing on Irial’s past while he was the Dark King and loved before, and Keenan’s romances in attempt to free himself and his Summer court from a curse and restore his power as Summer King. Ash and Irial’s stories set up for a future continuation: Irial had children, and Aislinn descended from one of them. She now faces a new enemy: her great uncle, and that conflict will expand in future stories.
Marr’s writing enchants, both managing to surprise readers with certain twists while adding foreshadowing for what’s to come with others. Despite Wicked Lovely’s initial end ten years ago, the new stories neatly connect within the histories already constructed for the series and manage to continue its many complex relationships, including the surprise of Aislinn being descended from Irial. The book succeeds in doing so without adding additional love triangles or new love interests interrupting existing relationships as others are prone to do. These stories are faithful and well thought out, made for the Wicked Lovely fans rather than a new readership.
Many of her stories include environmental messages: “The Nameless” shows characters worrying about sustainability practices. “Knee Deep in the Sea” shows Isabel worrying about polluting the ocean and apologising to the local seals when she throws a man’s wallet to the sea while Margaret is an embodiment of nature. The Fairy courts in Wicked Lovely function as embodiments of nature and the cycle of seasons. Each ruler exerts powerful control over what their court embodies: Aislinn as the Summer Queen with heat and encouraging plants to grow, with Winter summoning frost and storms. Marr’s fairies have the common trait of weakening in the presence of iron. This expands into many man-made things shown at odds with the stone, wood, plants, and animals that the courts surround themselves with in their dwellings.
If one thing is certain, Marr’s writing is empowering and inclusive ample with representation. Many of her characters are LGBT+, such as Beatrice and Alice, many women in “The Nameless,” Irial and Nial. Irial finds happiness in a polyamorous relationship with Nial, his old lover and the new Dark King, and Leslie, a human girl who became entangled in the Dark Court and became consort. Adelaide and Nox in “The Devil’s Due” are a mixed-race couple written in a setting where mixed race marriage was illegal. Nox remains part of Adelaide’s scheme from beginning to end and as Adelaide’s equal. Marr doesn’t shy away from discussing sex and sexual encounters. She encourages exploration and normality of the subject.
On top of this, Marr also writes about sexual assault and harassment. It’s a difficult subject to write about, and she doesn’t make any of the assaults mentioned explicit, but does focus on the recovery, healing, and empowerment of characters who have experienced sexual assault, including showing her characters in happy relationships where boundaries are addressed and matter.
Worthy of note is that Marr includes two author’s notes. One follows “The Devil’s Due” on the matter of women’s suffering and deaths existing in works as a popular trope for the development of male characters, in which Marr emphasises the need and power in female characters being written alive and speaking. As people, not plot devices. The other follows “Winter Dreams,” as a note to encourage seeking help and having a community to support any reader with suicidal thoughts. While suicide doesn’t occur in the story in question, readers of the Wicked Lovely series learn in other books that Moira, Aislinn’s mother, committed suicide to escape being pursued by the fairy courts who saw her as a solution to break the curse placed on most of them.
While this collection has some original works, half the stories are related to Marr’s other series and are dependent on the readers’ familiarity with them. Graveminder wouldn’t be such trouble with only one book out so far. However, the three Wicked Lovely stories are certainly meant for those who have read the five main Wicked Lovely novels. They function as an expansion of that world and to sow the seeds of a sequel series and new conflicts for these characters. These four stories may gain both series more interest, and the book will still have something to offer in the first half that doesn’t require previous familiarity with Marr’s works.
Of Maidens and Swords is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of January 21st 2021.
Will you be picking up Of Maidens and Swords? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis
This novel-length (80,000 word) story collection includes Marr’s 2019 & 2020 short fiction (all previously published in magazines, anthology, or ebook), including the new Wicked Lovely Stories “Love Hurts,” “Summer Bound,” and “Winter Dreams,” as well as “Nameless,” “Changing Guards,” “The Devil’s Due,” and “Knee Deep in the Sea” and “Of Roses and Kings.”
