THE COURT OF BROKEN KNIVES

RELEASED 29 JUNE 480 pages | Hardback/ebook

Author anna smith spark

Publisher Harper Voyager

it’s the anti-hero Marith who makes Anna Smith Spark’s debut so distinctive. He ranks as one of the year’s more memorable fantasy characters. The disgraced heir to a legendary throne, he’s a drug fiend and child killer. He’s charming and handsome, but his path to victory is not noble.

Beyond the genre staples like dragons, mages and gritty battles, there’s something romantic about The Court Of Broken Knives. Its defining moments concern prince Marith’s relationships with the male lover of his youth and High Priestess Thalia in the present day.

First-person accounts and flashbacks punctuate the tale. We endure a few infodumps, sometimes delivered via minstrel verses. Purple prose drips from feasting scenes; honey and wine are almost fetishised; somebody’s always eating. Smith Spark excels at sudden but vivid vignettes: fishermen capturing their mermaid brides, a room so cold spilled blood freezes into crystals on the floor...

It’s not as well-paced and fun as Anna Stephens’s Godblind (see page 112). Nor is it as Dickensian and self-aware as established Brit grimdarker Joe Abercrombie. But it’s a confident first novel with deep veins of vice and brutality running through it, heralding the start of an atmospheric new series.