Stealing the Devil’s Kitchenware: A Dual Review

Hello everyone! Thanks for coming back to the blog, and I hope you enjoyed my first review!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m a member of two graphic novel book clubs, and we usually start with a round table What Else Are You Reading(graphic novel or otherwise)? I had just finished a book called the Devil’s Cup and we were reading Hillbilly for the book club, a book of stories based on Appalachian folklore centering around a character named Rondel, who had received as a gift the Devil’s Cleaver, which he used to hunt down witches. One of my other book club members pointed out how everyone was stealing the Devil’s Kitchenware, which honestly I was so engrossed in both I didn’t even think of.

Starting with the Devil’s Cup, I think the reason that I enjoyed it the most was while it takes place in medieval times and most novels when they tackle that genre are focusing on kings and queens this novel focuses on regular people(albeit detectives of a sort), their day to day lives, and how they can affect events on a larger scale. While the Devil’s Cup worked fine as an independently read book, the later novels will have little footnotes reading see previous novel referencing an event or a character, which made me just want to read more. This book had such strong character development and I got so attached to the characters that I cried when one of them came to a tragic end, something I don’t think I’ve done as the result of a book since a certain battle at a certain magical school.

Hillbilly had the same affect of making me want more; it left a lot of things out that I sincerely hope they publish more so I can learn about the tragic character that is Rondel. He tells his own story to another character of how he came to be who he was at the beginning of the novel, as well as expressing sincere guilt over feeling cursed and spreading this curse to other people around him that makes you think he’s not telling the whole truth. This, along with more amazing Appalachian tales, is what I hope to read more about in future trades.

I highly recommend reading the Hawkenlye Series by Alys Clare, of which Devil’s Cup is the most recent, as well as Hillbilly in its present and any future forms.