UNRAVELLER

In a land where curses are real and binding, a young weaver discovers that teasing them apart is wrapped in unexpected consequences.

Hardinge has a rare gift for crafting strange and original worlds, and here she’s in top form as she chucks two teenagers into webs of deadly magic and conspiracy in Raddith, where curse eggs are illegal but readily available to be cast by anyone out of spite or hatred. The journey takes rude, ill-tempered Kellen, whose unique talent for unravelling affects not only curses, but any woven garment or item in his vicinity, and his constant (in every sense) companion Nettle, seemingly “meek and inoffensive if you didn’t know her,” from the populous capital of Mizzleport to swampy wilds haunted by terrifying creatures to eldritch Moonlit Market (where everything, including memories and daydreams, is vulnerable). The author gradually brings Kellen (and readers) to an understanding that curses are not always undeserved, that those who bestow them may be damaged but are not invariably evil, and that perhaps we all have the capability to control the hatred that fuels them. Along with weaving in frequent desperate straits and near brushes with disaster, she embroiders her tale with memorable lines; a romantic subplot involving a rider bonded to a demonic horse and, by the end, even more so to his loving husband; and a cast of characters who are memorably distinct. The cast presents White.

Brightening toward the end, frightening throughout, psychologically acute.