Review: Misrule, by Heather Walter

 

Feared and despised for the sinister power in her veins, Alyce wreaks her revenge on the kingdom that made her an outcast. Once a realm of decadence and beauty, Briar is now wholly Alyce’s wicked domain. And no one will escape the consequences of her wrath. Not even the one person who holds her heart.
Princess Aurora saw through Alyce’s thorny facade, earning a love that promised the dawn of a new age. But it is a love that came with a heavy price: Aurora now sleeps under a curse that even Alyce’s vast power cannot seem to break. And the dream of the world they would have built together is nothing but ash.

Vengeance can't be everything. While the first book in the duology, Malice, is simply a compelling retelling of the story of Sleeping Beauty, the second book deals with the aftermath. Heather Walter's Misrule asks heavy questions: what happens after you exact revenge for everything they did to you? How much can you push until it only becomes an endless cycle of violence? Is there any way to stop? Alyce, now called Nimara, spends a century lost in the need of taking revenge against those who wronged her and her people, saving Goblins and Vilas and making the fae pay the ultimate price. There's nothing to keep her in check until Aurora awakens, and the princess ends up acting as a moral compass of sorts. Aurora isn't happy with the changes within Alyce, especially those she feels are only caused by the darker presence buried deep inside Alyce. Aurora knows that the status quo couldn't remain the same, but she doesn't think that endless violence is the answer.

This conflict is at the heart of Misrule, showing a constant pull between what is easy and what is right. The question whether Alyce and Aurora will finally overcome their differences and get back together is almost in the background, and it's a good thing. Obviously the matter is at the forefront of Alyce's mind, but it's also shadowed by the core conflict. The resolution, too, to this clash of values is beautiful. Forgiveness takes time, and rightly so.

The world, which was fairly circumscribed in the first book, here takes on new depths. We meet all manners of new fae species, and the past is more explored. I found especially well done the inner conflict Alyce experiences when faced with the Shifters, reminding her of the betrayal she suffered in the first book. This wariness mirrors her fear of accessing that very same part of herself, and it's fitting that part of the resolution is exactly making her peace with it.

The new characters shine, but it's an old one that I find especially fascinating. The Grace who used to torment Alyce - and whom I would have loved to see redeemed - here takes a sharp turn towards villainy, but it's still a turn that makes sense with the character, and with what she suffered over a whole century. While I didn't like her ending, I appreciated how it reinforced the deeper point about revenge being an endless cycle.

All in all, Misrule is a solid conclusion to the duology, with an ending more complex than I expected.

✨ 3.5 stars