Arden has returned to mixing historical fiction with fantasy again. This time insead of medieval Russia, Arden is taking inspiration from the life of the last heiress of Brittany—before France married her off to force a union between the two crowns. The historical Anne of Brittany didn’t exactly have the happiest of lives, but maybe in this retelling, things may go differently?
The first half of the books did an excellent job pulling me in: Anne is in a precarious position; she knows France is trying to pull Brittany into the fold by forcing her hand in marriage to Charles of France. To slip out of this, Anne needs to stall the French long enough in order to set up a proxy marriage to Maximillian of Austria and gain the protection of his army. However, the timeline in which Brittany can act gets horribly compressed when Guillaume de La Trémoille, lieutenant-general of France, arrives to come collect Anne. So they need a distraction; how about a unicorn hunt in the Brocéliande?
The Brocéliande is an ancient forrest that is thought to be home of the fair-folk, the korriganed. There also tales of people disappearing into the forrest and only re-appearing decades later. And in what is the books first reveal of the fantastical, the forest is impenetrable to diviners. The power of Divination here is real, and one of Anne’s greatest fears is that France will learn if her scheme to cut herself off from Charles if one of their court’s skilled diviners has the forethought to ask: “Who is the betrothed of the duchess of Brittany?” Or if one of the more more workman-like diviners sent a coded message back to the king.
So off they go to distract La Trémoille with a wild goose chase involving a mythical unicorn. No one was expecting one to actually turn up. Nor was anyone expecting to find a bewildered, two -hundred-year displaced man who may have been caught within the court of the korriganed.
The Unicorn Hunters got off to a really strong start; I was really impressed with both Anne’s character and her ability to play people like a fiddle. The scheme she was trying to put into place here was also ingenious. But the momentum that was gathering throughout the first part of the book started petering out the further I got through the novel. I’m not sure what the main issue was, but I suspect it may have been compression; the book is only about 370 pages, and I feel that certain plot points were resolved two quickly and challenges too easily overcome.* This is especially true of a certain character that picks up how to perform certain magical feats, such as stepping through the shadows, with insane prodigal speed. Events that should have felt impactful ended up a little dulled as a result. Which was a shame.
I was a little surprised by this; Arden is usually a very strong writer. And to be fair, the prose was fantastic and the novel was very atmospheric. And again, Anne herself was a delight. But I feel that the other elements didn’t really hit the peaks they should have. There’s quite a bit of unspent potential here; it’s a good bock but it doesn’t hit great. Still very enjoyable if you like historical fantasy but I fell it could have been more.
For cbr18bingo, this one is Refuge. Anne is trying to seek refuge from he French. And someone else…
