Unraveller

This latest novel from Frances Hardinge once more displays her inventiveness and her skill at creating alternative worlds. The notion on which the plot turns is a brilliant development of the idea of the transformative power of curses. Its title refers to the powers of its central character, Kellen, who has the rare gift of being able to track back the source of a curse and so unravel it, freeing its victim from whatever awful transformation has been visited upon them. This is a gift that has its own problems since it extends to anything that is woven, and results in him wearing iron studded gloves to prevent him unwittingly reducing nearby curtains or clothing to shreds. Kellen takes his place in a world that is densely imagined: from ‘The Little Brothers’, who resemble spiders, and live in the wild places of the country of Raddith, to the merchants of Chancery, who can do business only by virtue of an ancient pact with the Little Brothers that enables an uneasy coexistence of the rational and the magical. Add to this a man who has literally given an eye for a partnership with a Marsh Horse, a creature whose jaws are as deadly as its skin is glossy, and who drags Kellen and best friend Nettle (lady sensible to impulsive Kellen) on a mysterious quest. And there is a lot more deliciously dark, and wickedly witty, fun to come – nearly five hundred pages of it – weighted with some insight into the worst and best of human behaviour and a poignant consideration of the duality of mind of a human turned into, say, a heron or a seagull. Presented with such a feast of a book, it is undoubtedly churlish of me to say that I nevertheless found the restless invention running away with the thread of the story, making it difficult for me to stay on track.