Of Blood and Honey, by Stina Leicht
Night Shade Books, Fantasy, 296 pages, paperback edition.
My copy: Purchased.
Pros: Meticulously researched. Grittily Irish. Strong worldbuilding.
Cons: Lags in places, Fae under-utilised, may be too dark for some.
In a line: Irish half-breed struggles with his demons through The Troubles.
”On your feet, taig.”
Rating: 7/10
Stina Leicht’s debut, Of Blood and Honey, is a melding of historical fiction, mythological horror and dark, gritty fantasy. Leicht’s meticulously researched story paints a convincing picture of life during The Troubles, an unusual setting for dark fantasy, but an effective one. The mythology of Ireland has roots extending back hundreds of years, and Leicht draws upon them to create even more trouble for the Irish.
Troubled young man
Liam Kelly is a classically troubled young man. Not only is he growing up in the middle of The Troubles – and if you don’t know anything about the amazingly harsh treatment the Irish have gone through, this book will educate you – but he doesn’t know who his father is. Not only is he brutalised by the authorities, but darkness is creeping into the edges of his world. He has dark flashes, a temper that’s increasingly hard to keep in check, and perhaps something a little more sinister in himself.
To make things worse, Liam is brutalised – physically and sexually – while in prison. He essentially collapses as a person, and this lets the monster in him surface. When it does, Liam starts to drown, losing parts of himself to the dominant force within his own flesh and blood.
Despite these disadvantages, not everything goes against Liam. He works to carve a place in the world for himself, falling in love and working on a family. A priest keeps an eye over him, providing some support and watching over Liam’s growing troubles. His friends and colleagues – workmates and political allies – alternate between ignoring and exploiting his supernatural condition. As the story
Religion and politics
Religion and politics play as important a role in the story as character and mythology. Leicht has done a fantastic amount of research into what life was like for the Irish when the book was set, and talks about that in more detail in a blog post at the Night Bazaar. She makes an analogy to research being like an iceberg of facts floating in the sea of story – mostly submerged, but powerful nonetheless. Leicht’s iceberg is of Titanic-smashing proportions.
Leicht doesn’t waste time with unnecessary exposition. She either assumes that we know enough to get by, or has faith we’ll stick with her. To an extent, this works fine. Leicht is a talented writer and the first quarter of her book pushes along at an excellent place. Her writing is swift and sure, with ventures into a vernacular that opens up a new side of language for us.
When we move into the mystical parts of the story, Leicht lags a little. Her exploration of Irish mythology and history is not as comprehensively immersing as the mundane parts of the book. This is understandable in part, as our hero doesn’t know what’s going on with him until much later. Still, there is ample opportunity through the book when more knowledgable characters occur for some more exposition, and this left me feeling a little unsatisfied.
Comparatively, Leicht’s focus on the political and religious parts of The Troubles is superb. Her attention to detail and representation of actual history is brilliantly done, and she weaves what little mystical elements she shows us into the story deftly and with skill. Leicht’s writing of things like the internment camps, the splitting of communities along religious lines, and the amazingly strong ties of family and tradition that bind Irish families are all outstanding.
The story itself is strong if, as mentioned, a little imbalanced. Time passes quickly and we see Liam having to deal with crisis after crisis. Some of Leicht’s strongest writing is when she shows us how Liam deals with the horrible situations he’s forced into. His moments of weakness, of letting his inner monster surface, have a visceral solidity which make the most powerful scenes in the book.
Relentless darkness
This is not a cheery book. There are no wise men giving quests, no pots of gold, and definitely no leprechauns. And if leprechauns arrive in the next book, I bet they’re cynical and coated in poisonous quills. Like the constant misfortunes and obstacles the Irish face, Of Blood and Honey has a sense of beleaguered resilience about it.
It reminds me of a slightly less cynical Tales of Thomas Covenant. It requires some stamina to get through, simply because sympathy for the hero has us wincing every second page as he is beaten, assaulted and betrayed. The hero is set about on all sides by enemies, some invisible, some plain to see. He has powers that he acquired unwillingly but cannot use easily. His allies flicker and fade, or prove to be unreliable, and his actions puts his loved ones in danger.
A brilliant start
Of Blood and Honey comes across strongly as a ‘part one’, despite not being marketed as such. The climax doesn’t resolve most of the issues raised in the books, only settling immediate problems of survival. Dozens of questions are left unanswered or unaddressed, and a sequel will hopefully expound on the fantastic, if uneven, setting that Leicht has prepared for us. If we can delve a little more into the workings of the Fae and Fallen, explore the mystical world as well as the mundane, then I have high hopes for an excellent series from this talented debut author.
As it stands, Of Blood and Honey is an excellent novel, and one that has me eager for a follow-up. The bleakness of her hero’s life is heart-wrenching, and we can’t help but cheer him on through adversity. My only minor quibble – the leaving-out of such fantastically intriguing mythology and mysticism – stems not from a weakness of Leicht’s writing, but my own enthusiastic impatience to see more of this world she’s crafted for us.
Of Blood and Honey gets 7 mischevious Faelings.
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