Marra, the youngest of the Harbor Kingdom's three princesses, has lost one sister to the abuse of the Prince of the North Kingdom and dreads losing the other. She sets out to seek the help of the Dustwife to murder the Prince, both to protect the sister she has left and in revenge for the sister lost.

I was not enthusiastic about this one based on the basic plot synopsis, and reading my own synopsis above and feeling the same, I think it's because the shape of the story suggests a kind of polemic that the book itself never actually descends to. Instead what we get is a story that is at times apocalyptic in tone, and at times almost cutesy. The opening pages feature our protagonist engaging in Necromancy, digging through remains and building a Bone Dog of mismatched parts, before stepping back and filling in the backstory that leads to this dark course. The tone shifts as the Dustwife and other travelers join her ranks, and in its second half it feels more quirky and playful than the dark it was at the start. The tone shift doesn't come with a drop in quality, but it isn't a wholly smooth transition, and it does stumble slightly as a result--but only slightly. I found myself fully invested in the plot almost from the first page, and the novel moves with a tight pace through straight to its conclusion. It's really great stuff.