Instead of just one exceptional girl, Ursula Vernon creates a whole cast of diverse and compelling women who, ultimately, have to work together in order to defeat the man who has harmed them all and fight back against a system that gives them little recourse to address the injustices they’ve been subjected to. Kingfisher heroine that is ever framed as “not like other girls.” I feel like this shouldn’t be noteworthy, but “not like other girls” is sadly too often the shorthand authors use in order to create “strong female characters” so I’m always happy-especially in work about and for teenage girls-to see girl characters who are allowed to exist without being shown as constantly in competition with other girls and women. It’s just that there’s nothing about a T. It’s not that her girls and women don’t have any exceptional qualities Rhea, for example, is exceptionally tenacious, brave, kind, and principled. Kingfisher’s (Ursula Vernon in disguise) work, and so far I have never not been delighted by the total lack of exceptionalism among her heroines.
Perhaps what I love best about Rhea is that she’s such a refreshingly ordinary girl.
Not only has Crevan been married before, but his previous wives aren’t dead. When Rhea goes to live at Crevan’s house before the actual wedding takes place, however, she finds out that things are much worse than she thought they were. The marriage to the much older, more powerful, and creepy man isn’t ideal, but peasants don’t say no to lords. Although Rhea’s parents are good, loving people who want their daughter to be happy, there’s very little they can do to prevent the marriage. Rhea is the fifteen-year-old daughter of a miller in a small town, and while she always did expect to be married someday, she didn’t expect to find herself engaged so young and rather against her will to the wealthy (and sinister) Lord Crevan. The Seventh Bride is a beautiful, clever, funny story about power, abuse, revenge, and-above all-the ties of shared experiences that bind women together and the vital importance of women loving and supporting each other. It turns out to be much more than just a simple retelling of an old tale, however. I don’t see “Bluebeard” pop up that often in the vast sea of princess stories that seem to get almost obligatorily reimagined on a perennial basis, so right out of the gate I was predisposed to love this story because it was so obviously a fresh perspective.
The Seventh Bride is, loosely, a retelling of “Bluebeard,” which is a nice change from the more common fairy tale retellings that populate most shelves.
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