The Gilded Crown (The Raven's Trade, #1) by Marianne Gordon
Genres: Fantasy, High Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MC, secondary M/M, queernorm world
PoV: Third-person, past-tense
ISBN: 0008536112
Goodreads

The Witch’s Heart meets The Foxglove King in this debut novel about a woman who can bring people back from the dead, and the princess — and only heir to the throne — that she must protect, no matter the cost.

The first time Hellevir visited Death, she was ten years old…

Since she was a little girl, Hellevir has been able to raise the dead. Every creature can be saved for a price, a price demanded by the shrouded figure who rules the afterlife, who takes a little more from Hellevir with each soul she resurrects.

Such a gift can rarely remain a secret. When Princess Sullivain, sole heir to the kingdom’s throne, is assassinated, the Queen summons Hellevir to demand she bring her granddaughter back to life. But once is not enough; the killers might strike again. The Princess’ death would cause a civil war, so the Queen commands that Hellevir remain by her side.

But Sullivain is no easy woman to be bound to, even as Hellevir begins to fall in love with her. With the threat of war looming, Hellevir must trade more and more of herself to keep the princess alive.

But Death will always take what he is owed.

Highlights

~sapphic necromancy
~crow animal companion!
~eel squiggles
~find the treasures
~try not to piss off Death

(This is not the official cover, which is hideous: this is the cover that originally went out on the paper advance reader copies, which is a) prettier and b) a much more accurate representation of the book!)

Gordon’s debut is a book I didn’t expect to care much about, but what was meant to be an idle glance at the opening pages turned into a drop-everything, forget-to-eat reading frenzy. And yet frenzy feels like the wrong word, because Gilded Crown is not a frantic, breakneck kind of story. It’s more of a silken riptide, giving the impression of something delicately and beautifully created, like blown glass – but also quietly implacable, unbreakable, like an ancient oak tree.

I’ve read it twice now, and I still love it.

The first time Hellevir visited Death, she was ten years old.

Tell me that’s not a STELLAR first line!!!

Hellevir can talk to animals, see spirits (think elementals, not ghosts), and enter Death – and once there, she can bargain to bring a person back to life. But it hasn’t worked out well for her; bringing back her mother, who died in childbirth, fractures her family, and when she dares resurrect the crown princess, she becomes a prisoner in a gilded cage for the throne.

It’s Gordon’s prose that elevates this story for me; delicate really is the word that comes to mind, and the description of the natural world, the use of nature imagery in similes and the like, is beautifully done. Writing this way also helps reinforce one of the biggest themes in the story, that of heathenism vs… I’m not sure what to call it. Monotheism, maybe? Hellevir follows the traditions of her homeland, which recognise spirits in the trees and the hearths, and acknowledges that occasionally there are people who can talk to birds; it’s seen as more closely tied to the earth, the land, literally grounded in reality. There’s no name for this tradition, and no gods are ever named (though a few are referred to), and there don’t seem to be any rules of behaviour in it – no Ten Commandments. Whereas Onaistism, the monotheistic religion swiftly gaining popularity in places like the capital city, burns people like Hellevir. The conflict between the two practices grows stronger and more overt throughout the book, and Gordon places us inside that conflict, squarely on Hellevir’s side, not just by writing what she does, but by writing the way she does, down to imagery and word choices.

I approve immensely.

the swans drifting like dropped petals along the nearby canal.

the curl of hair like a snail’s shell over one ear.

Her heart skipped like a stone over water,

But there’s also the wonderful surprise that is Gordon deliberately rejecting a number of expected tropes in this story. One reason I hate the official cover is that it screams (Trying-To-Be-)Dark Romantasy, but Gilded Crown is not a romance, and the way Gordon handled Hellevir and Princess Sullivain’s relationship delighted me because it doesn’t follow the predictable path – sure, Hellevir catches feelings, but she never gives in to them, and everyone, including the narrative, makes sure she never forgets that Sullivain is Terrible, Actually.

That balance – Sullivain being attractive, having a massively appealing side, but also being awful – applies to everything. Hellevir’s parents are an excellent example: on the surface, Hellevir’s mother is bitter and cold to Hellevir, believing her gifts are some kind of evil, while her father is supportive and warm. But gradually, we realise – the narrative points out – that Hellevir’s mother wasn’t able to practise her religion in Hellevir’s childhood home. And if that’s so, who wasn’t letting her? Hellevir’s so-kind father, presumably. Hellevir’s mother has pretty understandable reasons for being the way she is, and the loving father isn’t an uncomplicatedly good guy either. Almost nothing is perfectly simple; it’s all tangled and complicated – while managing to feel quite direct and easy to read.

I put Gilded Crown on my Best Backlist Reads of 2024, and I’m still convinced it deserves to be there. This is a book that’s flown a bit under the radar – the wrong readers picked it up because of its STUPID cover, while the readers who would love it are mostly unaware of it. But I hope it keeps being found by the readers it’s meant for – because seriously; Marianne Gordon is clearly one to watch!

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