One of my recent joys has been discovering Malinda Lo’s fantasy YA books. In her novel, Ash, Lo creates a beautiful Queer re-imagining of the Cinderella fairytale, complete with a complex main character, a fresh take on the plot, and gorgeous use of language, description, and world-building. Huntress is sort of a prequel to Ash, but it was written after Ash was published; you don’t have to have read it to read Ash.

Here is the publisher’s summation of the plot:

In the wake of her father’s death, Ash is left at the mercy of her cruel stepmother. Consumed with grief, her only joy comes by the light of the dying hearth fire, rereading the fairy tales her mother once told her. In her dreams, someday the fairies will steal her away, as they are said to do. When she meets the dark and dangerous fairy Sidhean, she believes that her wish may be granted.

The day that Ash meets Kaisa, the King’s Huntress, her heart begins to change. Instead of chasing fairies, Ash learns to hunt with Kaisa. Though their friendship is as delicate as a new bloom, it reawakens Ash’s capacity for love-and her desire to live. But Sidhean has already claimed Ash for his own, and she must make a choice between fairy tale dreams and true love.

Also there’s a prince, but in a delightful subversion no one cares about the prince except as a possible long-shot husband for one of the stepsisters, and even then their Plan A is to marry above their station but not as high as the Prince. He’s just in the background, conveniently hosting things.

Despite including a lovely romance, this book has more to do with grief, healing, and empowerment than it does with romance. Ash is devastated by her mother’s death and sleeps on her grave at night. She’s prevented from doing so after her father remarries, and when her father dies, the stepmother, Lady Isobel, moves Ash and Isobel’s two daughters to the city. Ash grieves for her mother, her father, and her home. Above all, she feels cut off from the world of Faerie and she longs for the Fey lord Sidhean, who visited her at her mother’s grave. The book excels at conveying this sense of grief and longing, of fits of rage and fits of numbness, and acts of desperation.

The first time Ash sees Kaisa, it’s not love at first sight, but it is attraction at first sight, not just of the physical sort but in the old sense of attraction as a magnetic or otherwise bonding thing. Kaisa’s existence, her treatment of Ash as an equal, and the vision she offers Ash of a different life are things that tie Ash to this world and help wake her up from her grief. Her relationships with Sidhean, who promises withdrawal from humanity, and Kaisa, who promises a life rooted in the human world of now, fluctuate as her stages of grief fluctuate. It’s a powerful vision of how we push and pull away from life in different emotional stages.

When this book was first published (2009) it was unusual for not including a coming-out narrative. Instead, Ash and Kaisa’s mutual attraction is presented matter-of-factly. Homophobia is not a barrier to them. Ash’s bargains with Sidhean and her imprisonment by her stepmother are the barriers. Ash has to learn to love, to trust, to be compassionate, and to be clever – it’s beautiful to see those qualities emerge from the frustrated, lonely, furious girl we meet at the start of the book who wants nothing but escape. There are few conflicts between Ash and Kaisa. All of the conflict is either from outside forces or from Ash’s own ambivalence about fully being alive in a painful world.

My favorite thing about this book is its use of fairy tales to build the world, establish the rules by which people live, and build character development. Ash, Kaisa, and Sidhean share a love of fairytales when others scorn them. They often communicate and bond by sharing different fairy tales with each other. It’s a clever way to do a great deal without directly “telling” buckets of exposition and it’s a great way of allowing people to communicate when various factors prevent them from doing so clearly.

This book falls short for me only because the romance is barely sketched in. Kaisa is more of a symbol of life than an actual person, just as Sidean is a symbol of the Faery World, which in itself is a symbol of death. I would have liked more of a relationship between Kaisa and Ash, and more of a picture of what their lives would look like once they got together.

Other than the superficial quality of the love story, I loved this book. I love it that even the meaner stepsister is shown to have actual issues, and that Ash is a little bit self centered and bitter and angry and not angelic. I love the use of metaphor and romance to explore grief and I love the lyrical nature of the writing. It was an immersive, beautiful story that I would happily re-read.