Les Fiancés de l'Hiver by Christelle Dabos

Les Fiancés de l'Hiver by Christelle Dabos

This is a French YA novel that I picked up from a very limited choice in a countryside bookstore last summer. I only read it recently. It's fantasy in the pre-Tolkien sense in that it depicts a world of wonder, but there are none of your elves and dwarves here. There is a hint of a long distant apocalypse that fractured the world into territories rules by Families who share certain sets of supernatural powers. Ophélie, the hero, is promised in marriage to Thorn, a gaunt man from a distant Family of Pole. She moves there before the wedding and discovers a ruthless royal court where intrigue and assassination are common. She also gradually finds out why her marriage is so important to Thorn and his aunt Bérénilde. It's a good novel that doesn't feel particularly Young Adult. It's a change from more habitual fantasy, and very well written too. Dabos has a good literary style and one that conveys the wonder of her imagined world very nicely. Maybe the only downside is the pacing of the novel which means I never really got gripped to the point of not letting the book go until the last third. Still, I'll read the follow-up(s) on occasion.