The Deathless Girls
By Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Blurb
On the eve of her divining, the day she'll discover her fate, seventeen-year-old Lil and her twin sister Kizzy are captured and enslaved by the cruel Boyar Valcar, taken far away from their beloved traveller community.
Forced to work in the harsh and unwelcoming castle kitchens, Lil is comforted when she meets Mira, a fellow slave who she feels drawn to in a way she doesn't understand. But she also learns about the Dragon, a mysterious and terrifying figure of myth and legend who takes girls as gifts.
They may not have had their divining day, but the girls will still discover their fate...
Our Review
In my opinion the best retellings seek to develop some minor or untouched aspect of a story or bring it into the modern era without altering it beyond recognition. The Deathless Girls falls into the former and focuses on the underdeveloped and unnamed women who came to be known as the brides of Dracula.
I am alone in the castle with those awful women. Faugh! Mina is a woman, and there is nought in common. They are devils of the Pit!
17-Year-old twins Lil and Kizzy are captured and enslaved by a cruel Boyar. In a cruel twist the girls are lost to each other due to a building resentment between them. Lil seeks comfort and companionship with Mira, a fellow captive.
Before long the girls begin to hear about a mythical monster known as The Dragon. A creature who accepts girls as gifts…
This was a beautiful book and right up my alley. I loved it so much and am pleased I bought it. It reminded me very much of The Historian and I can understand why people have been raving about it so much.
The girls are very close but the tragic circumstances of their capture and their very different methods of dealing with it threaten to tear them asunder at times. I felt that the dynamic that can exist between two siblings was portrayed extremely well throughout the book.
One of major things I loved about The Deathless Girls were the insights into the girl’s lives when they were amongst the traveller community and their traveller culture in general. Their views on ‘The Settled’ also made for interesting reading.
“The reasons the Settled hated us were many and stupid; because we had brown skin, because we lived in wagons, because we called no land our own. And they were kept in fear by the stories they were told. That we had dark skin because the devils live in us. We could read the weather because the Iele suckled us. We travelled because we steal everyone and moved before we could be caught. None of it was true of course, but people always prefer their own explanations over the reality of things.”
Our Final Rating...
Read & Shared 13 Times.
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