So. I was extremely a Gail Carson Levine kid (stay with me, I swear this is relevant). Ella Enchanted was my entire personality for a number of years, and I even watched and have a delightful soft spot for the Anne Hathaway film adaptation that barely has a passing resemblance to the book. All this to say, the idea of obedience being a curse was not new for me, but where Ella had a little wiggle room in that curse, poor Cordelia is in HELL. Ella still had like...physical control over her body. Cordelia is getting puppeted to the Nth degree. She is pushed down in her own body for DAYS, has no physical control, and honestly by the end of chapter 1, I was convinced it was a miracle she wasn't utterly mad.

By whom is Cordelia being puppeted, you ask? Evangeline, her mother. Not evil stepmother. Not fairy godmother. HER. MOTHER. Who, very much in line with evil mothers everywhere, does not see Cordelia as her own person so much as she is an extension of Evangeline. In this case, Evangeline takes this a half step farther and decides that Cordelia not only doesn't get privacy or a personality, but also doesn't get bodily autonomy. It's GRIM.

Early on, Evangeline loses her benefactor, and has to go find another one, which is where she manipulates things into being invited to stay with the Squire (he has a name but he's the Squire) and his sister, Lady Hester. Hester is the best ever. She's in her 50s, her knees are going, and she clocks Evangeline within about 0.0001 nanoseconds. She also clocks that Cordelia is SUPER not ok within the first oh, twelve hours of her being in the house or so? And Hester knows pretty much instantly that she is about to be wrapped up in preventing Evangeline from marrying her brother and getting Cordelia away from her hideously abusive mother. While dealing with her own second-chance romance with eminently eligible bachelor Richard Evemore. It's a glorious game and it plays out in a way where I literally couldn't put this book down.

The time period and setting is a little nebulous, which honestly is fine, but it reads regency to me, which I adored.

I also need to address how this is low-key the anti horse-girl book (You guys, I hyphenated and re-hyphenated that term so many times, but I think this hyphenation correctly communicates what I want. It's not anti-horse-girl, it's anti the genre of horse-girl books). Evangeline's familiar, Falada, is a demon shaped like a horse. When Cordelia is a child, Falada is her constant companion and confidant. UNTIL the day she tries to run away on him and it is revealed that Falada has been telling Evangeline EVERYTHING. Remember, he's not a horse, he's only horse-shaped. So he's been spilling every one of Cordelia's closest secrets to her mother for her entire life. THAT betrayal ends with Cordelia actively murderous, and frankly I cannot blame the girl. Falada is THE WORST on a very personal level. It's not comparable to the depth and scope of her mother's betrayal and abuse, but Falada is an easier target.

So much so that when Cordelia, Hester, and Richard are working out how to strip magic from magical beings, they use Falada as an experimental subject. This ends with the magical glowy horse-shaped demon beheaded, head burned to nothing, and body buried six feet under. Then, the next morning, Falada claws his way out of his grave and starts murdering people.

I cannot say "fuck this horse" with any more emphasis. This is the WORST horse.

This story is 100% Cordelia's and Hester's, but the world is absolutely airtight in terms of feeling real and the side characters being people rather than plot devices. Everyone we see matters, everyone we see has hopes and dreams and personality. This is true from Hester's lady friends to the servants to the absurdly personality-filled gander who steps to the headless demon horse. I just love how immersive this world and the characters are.