(Oddly, the fairies seemed defanged here I really enjoyed the actual threat they posed in Ash, but they’re fundamentally decent here.) But for all this variety, I found the world of Huntress very standard for fantasy. There are hints about how this society ultimately evolves into that society, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

The characters are unequivocally Asian, which I thoroughly appreciate, and there are little touches here and there that show how this fantasy world is differently from a fantasy world based on, say, 1700s Europe, as Ash was. (The comparisons and contrasts have always interested me, to be totally honest.) The cover flap states that it’s heavily based on the I Ching, which is evident in the presence of The Book of Changes (which the I Ching is alternately known as), the text that Academy students study. The first thing that a reader of Ash will notice is that Huntress is much more influenced by Chinese culture-in fact, it’s this interesting blend of Chinese and Irish influences that I quite like. The journey will be fraught with dangers-even, and especially, for Taisin and Kaede’s hearts. Upon consulting the oracle stones, Prince Con, Taisin, and Kaede are selected to answer the Fairy Queen’s summons. Winter has persisted in their Kingdom for years, and the arrival of an invitation from the Fairy Queen for the King seems their greatest hope at solving this crisis. Commoner Taisin is a prodigy Chancellor’s daughter Kaede doesn’t have a magical bone in her body. Huntress, set in Ash’s distant past, tells the story of Taisin and Kaede, two students at the Academy, the training ground for sages. (I always feel like my two public library systems are competing with each other, so I keep a very close eye on the pros and cons of each.) The right moment arrived, and my local library here at school came through admirably. It was somewhere between forgetting about it-the premise feels more traditional fantasy than the hook of “queer retelling of Cinderella”, so it tended to get lost the mental filing cabinet-and wanting to save it for the right moment. I really loved Ash, but I was somewhat slow to pick up Huntress, Lo’s sophomore outing.

Huntress by Malinda Lo