Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Armed in Her Fashion by Kate Heartfield

2 reviews

kell_xavi's review

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

3.5

 When the devil puts up walls, men smash them, and if they cannot smash them, they despair, or they walk away. But women must trickle through the cracks, they find a way through, because they have no choice, because they have nowhere to go, and nothing to smash with. (238)

Speculative elements tied to an atypical historical setting and plucky, endearing characters that came together in a sort of chimera and mostly worked well!

A courageous and creative book that includes varied women, each of whom are strong in their own way, though difficult and different in concert, a trans man who knows himself though many others are unsure, and a background of transformed beast-people with weapon, instrument, and animal parts melded with their former human bodies: a definition of character, soldier, actor somewhere between grotesque and cool.

I want only desperate men beside me.(229)

Some flaws in editing, missed periods and typos, and one page—with the bishop’s verdict on revenant property—entirely missing! I consider this a fair price to pay for original, non-romance, queer historical fantasy… but it was in addition to not quite being the novel I wanted.
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ghosthermione's review

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4.5

I think I described the book on twitter as "the Wife of Bath meets a Bosch painting, and also says 'trans rights!'" and that is basically it. It's a sff and medieval nerd's dream come true. We follow Margriet, who's not necessarily a nice character but is very much like the wife of Bath - she knows what she wants, she hates her husband, and she takes no shit. She and her little band navigate a world full of demons and half human monsters that I'd swear were lifted right off a Bosch paining, and for a story set in Bruges it makes a lot of sense! 
The story itself is about claiming what's yours, as a widow, and for your daughter, from a dead husband who was a liar and a thief but is still technically bound to you because medieval laws tend to say "fuck women". So while I didn't like Margriet, I could certainly see her point of view and why she was doing all of that. 
The "side" characters, who did have their own point of view chapters, were almost more interesting to me, from Beatrix who is developing some interesting magical abilities and tries to get her own way in a shitty world despite her stubborn mother, to Claude, the trans man-at-arm who's given shit by everyone around him for who he is but has a job to do and damned if he's not gonna do it! 
I especially liked Claude because I was not expecting a trans character (I don't fully read the summary sometimes, and I've had this book for ages) and I thought it was done well. Just be aware, the other characters misgender him continuously in their POV chapters. I'd have really liked if by the end, a few of them "got it" and gendered him correctly, but I was happy enough with the ending he got, considering the period setting. 
I also enjoyed that it pitted one woman - Margriet - against another - the Chatelaine - but they were all in a way fighting the same patriarchal bullshit. Now, the Chatelaine may be truly evil, but she's taken over Hell from her own good-for-nothing husband, and she's fighting for the King of France to give her what he promised - her own lands to govern - despite Salic laws and all that other shit. It was clearly not all black and white, and I like that in a villain too! 
As a weird little book tidbit, it has an inserted page to make up for a printer error, as I just found out now! It was funny and confusing when I came to it, I even made a little video. 
 It's a bit of a medievalist daydream and I highly recommend it!

 Trigger warnings: period-accurate sexism and transphobia, misgendering, violence, murder, body horror. 
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