Book Review: Crueler Mercies by Maren Chase

Rating: 8.25/10

TL;DR Review: Rapunzel meets Man in the Iron Mask. A helpless, naïve prisoner becomes a cunning, revenge-driven queen.

“Vita’s rage overflowed until she was prepared to drown in it, and she knew that she would never again dam this anger to please another.”

After nine years as the people’s beloved princess in the sun-soaked Kingdom of Carca, Vita witnesses the execution of her mother by her father’s hand. Forced into exile, Vita fades into obscurity with her only friends—the crows that visit her window.

Eleven years later, Vita is given a choice: marry an enemy general, granting him legitimacy to take the throne, or die as the forgotten princess. With time running out, Vita meets Soline, an intriguing lady-in-waiting who introduces her to the powerful-but-unstable magic of alchemy.

If Vita and Soline can learn to control it—and the undeniable spark between them—they could burn the world of men to the ground.

Crueler Mercies did something quite fascinating: it took an absolutely naïve, helpless character and transformed her into a cunning and revenge-driven badass.

In the beginning, we’re introduced to a ten-year old Vita, who watches her mother’s execution at her father’s hand and is subsequently banished to live out the rest of her life locked away in a high tower (a la Rapunzel). For a decade or so, she has only birds and the occasional servant for company, with no hope of anything outside her little room.

Until the day the city to which she’s been banished comes under siege and is captured. The enemy general proclaims that he will marry her and she is to be his queen, and together, they will kill her father in revenge for her mother’s death.

Vita, naturally, has no choice but to go along with the scheme. It’s clear from the beginning that her psyche is incredibly stunted—in many ways, she’s the ten-year-old girl who first went into that room.

But as the story weaves on, we see Vita gaining a better understanding of her husband-to-be’s cruelty, the horrors of the world around her, and her own desires—chiefly, a desire for vengeance. Not only against her father, but against everyone who has mistreated her, and the general who seeks to use her with no real care for what she wants or thinks.

Thus begins Vita’s slow efforts to undermine the general, to break his iron grip on her, and, one day she hopes, remove him entirely. In the doing, she may just discover that she is stronger and cleverer than she thinks. Once she learns more about the world around her, she will come into her own and, perhaps, become the queen she was born to be.

I loved seeing the innocent, hapless Vita in the beginning. Her naivete and innocence made the story feel so much darker than I expected. However, from the first chapters, the spark of anger and defiance within her was clear. I had no doubt she could become great—and as her story went on, it was immensely gratifying to see that she did.

Crueler Mercies is a slower-paced, slow-burn story that will keep you absolutely spellbound and burning through pages as you try to figure out what obstacle Vita will next face—and overcome—in her quest for revenge. The ending was so satisfying, the perfect culmination to an incredibly well-written and clever emotional and physical journey.

This book blends Rapunzel and The Man in the Iron Mask vibes and tells a story I love and am absolutely happy to recommend to dark fantasy readers like me.