Discover Top Posts Tagged with #menewood

Some things I’ve been reading lately

#books #reading #menewood #the spellshop #don’t let the forest in #the bog wife #the woods all black #motheater

The Picts carved many different beasts on their stones in the Early Medieval. Some real, some imaginary, a few somewhere in between. I set out to learn how to use the style to draw a few animals that they never did...

#art #boar #bull #early medieval #hares #Hild #horse #lynx #menewood #patreon #pictish stones #zoomorphics

getting emotional about nicola griffith’s HILD again (quotes from this essay:)

#hild #menewood #nicola griffith #homesick for a book in a way I haven’t been in a long while #I’m so mad I’ve finished them both

One day you're gonna read a book where the author meticulously researched every aspect of 630s domestic life and you're never going to be satisfied with any period based or inspired novel ever again in your life.

#hild #menewood

Reread my favorite book this summer and of course had to draw the main family unit from the early parts of the book. I don't know if the outfits are accurate but this is how I understand them when I read them. --- Onnen, Cian, Hild, Breguswith, and Hereswith from Nicola Griffith's Hild.

#hild #menewood #fan-art

I waited ten years for Menewood and it was well worth it. The period details, the quiet moments, the portraits of daily life interspersed with epic moments, the way the politics and intrigue were portrayed, it was all as good as Hild, if not better.

Menewood picks up a few months after Hild ends and follows Hild's first few years of young womanhood. (So if you haven't read Hild, I suggest you do so. There's a lot of context and character you'll be missing otherwise.) Hild might have survived the politics and battles of her childhood, but that doesn't mean that the politics have ended, or that she'll survive the next peril. It's only a matter of time before there's another war, after all, and it's her responsibility to keep her and her own safe through it.

Griffith does a wonderful job balancing the tenseness of the greater story with the realities of daily life and personal lives. Food has to be harvested, buildings need repair, relationships need strengthening, travel often involves hours or days of horseback riding through countryside. It's rich and detailed (and makes for a slow read) but that also lends to the tenseness in its own way because you can see what's at stake and you know the sort of things that are likely coming.

Griffith also doesn't shy away from the fact that organizing an estate, navigating court politics, having a good marriage, and trying to avoid a war is a lot of pressure for an eighteen-year-old, especially one whose childhood was full of similar tensions. I was glad she made this part of Hild's story, because it lends another level to the character and makes explicit some things that often get glossed over both in the stories we tell of medieval life and those we tell about ourselves now. Seeing Hild grow into her own as an adult was marvellous.

Honestly, there's very little about this book I didn't like. The secondary characters are as vibrant and finely drawn as Hild herself. Griffith's writing is strong on a technical level and it's clear she's done an impressive amount of research. She's as good at a fight scene as she is at writing a feast or a forest walk. Watching Hild work out politics and what's coming is a lot like watching a master detective solve a mystery—you have all the clues too but she sees how they fit together.

I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed Hild until I started reading Menewood, actually. (Ten years will do that.) Then it was "yes, this book, this book is good, why am I the only person I know who's read it?" Please, I'm begging you, read these books if you like great historical fiction, if you like epic fantasy*, and especially if you enjoy both genres.

And if I have to wait another ten years for the end of the trilogy, it'll be worth it too.

* no, it's not fantasy, there's no magic, but it's not like Game of Thrones has a whole lot of that either.

#book reviews #book recommendations #historical fiction #menewood #nicola griffith #read in 2023 #my photos #book covers #adult booklr #booklr #bookblr

Your power’s not in your gold or your name. It’s in you. I don’t understand it.

2024 in books: Menewood by Nicola Griffith

#menewood #hild #light of the world #nicola griffith

Fave Five: Queer Fiction Set in the Medieval Era, Part I

Gwen and Art are Not in Love by Lex Croucher (YA) Emry Merlin by Robyn Schneider (YA) The Scottish Boy by Alex de Campi The Hild Sequence by Nicola Griffith Solomon’s Crown by Natasha Siegel Bonus: Coming up in 2024, Splinter & Ash by Marieke Nijkamp (MG) and Not for the Faint of Heart by Lex Croucher (YA)