This wasn’t my first Auryn Hadley book. I’d come to learn of her writing through the series she co-authored with Kitty Cox. The Gamer Girls series, which by the way is phenomenal. I’ve not yet finished it. It’s kinda like delayed gratification. I will finish it but…not yet. Soon. Anyway! This was, however, the first time I’d read something she’d written solo.
Auryn Hadley has a way with words. From the first line I was intrigued. Her worldbuilding begins right away and it’s a sort of mix of modern and yet not. This is a world that could easily be the world we know, or perhaps have once known. The use of the word ‘baby’ as an endearment would throw me, but it was a good reminder that while this was a fantasy novel it made its own rules. As it should I hasten to add.
This book is a coming of age story. It’s also a story about chosen families, faith, magic, sex, polyamory and navigating those relationships, and the things people are tempted by that aren’t simply sex.
It’s also about the prices we pay to have what we want. Sacrifice. It is captivating. It’s also complex, beautiful, empowering, and at times heartbreaking. The themes that this story explores, and explores with sensitivity, are done so well I could talk about them for hours.
A young girl is surrendered to the church, because her family can’t afford to feed her and their other children. She’s not the only one. This is a frequent occurrence and hundreds if not thousands of children between the ages of 10 and 14 are surrendered every year on the same day after the last harvest, but before the snow. Nariana, our protagonist isn’t yet 10. She lies because her father, whom she’s desperate to have love her, tells her to lie, and because she’ll be 10 very soon. It’s close enough.
She is claimed by the God of Temptation, Zeal. There are other churches for the other five gods of this world, and the gods claim the children when they submerge their hand in a pool of their tears. Except that it’s so much more than that, because she is his Chosen One in a world where faith is sparse, and those she chooses to be her family are also his. They’re going to help him and the other gods.