The Summer War Celia was twelve years old the day she discovered her magical powers– it was also the day she accidentally cursed her beloved oldest brother, Argent, to live a life without love. Though she spends the next several years desperately searching for a way to undo her curse, there is no spell to break it. Argent is doomed to spend his life wandering the world, gaining fame and glory instead of the love he truly desires. Once Celia grows up, though, she can't spend her days looking for a way to undo what she's done. A sorceress is a tempting bride for a king desirous of power, and sooner than Celia would like, she is betrothed to a prince. But her path to the altar proves stranger than expected and helps her expose the truth behind the bloody war between her people and the immortal summerlings. Though her neglected middle brother comes to her aid as well as he can, Celia is in a race against time to find a way to end Argent's curse and heal the rift between her people and the summerlings. Curses, promises, and oaths have been part of faerie stories since faerie stories began. Whether it's a farmer's daughter who becomes a queen after keeping her promise to an ugly faerie woman or a man cursed to walk the earth until judgement day thanks to his trickster ways, these stories teach us that it's a good idea to think before we speak, because we never know what consequences our words will have. The Summer War by Naomi Novik is a lovely novella all about dealing with the consequences of ill-advised words. The curse that sets the story in motion was never meant to be binding. When she laid the curse on Argent, Celia was a twelve year old girl who was angry about her adult brother's decision to leave– a decision that seemed inexplicable to her. Because she felt he was spurning her sisterly love, she cursed him to not find love until he found someone stupid enough to love him back. But magic doesn't care if a child doesn't truly mean something. It takes her words at face value and twists them into something terrible that cannot be undone. Like in traditional faerie stories, Celia regrets her words but she can't take them back. It's too late for that. Other characters, too, discover that hasty words can lead to their downfall. The wording of a seemingly-straightforward contract leads to deadly peril. One oath sworn in anger leads to endless war, while another leads to a revelation of true love. Such things might seem trite or overdone on the surface, but Naomi Novik has a sure hand with her stories, never allowing them to devolve into the purely ridiculous or gratuitously violent. Her heroines may not be the most beautiful women in the realm, but they are truly clever and brave and don't find it necessary to denigrate other women who aren't as pretty or smart as they are, and Celia is no different. Though she begins her story as a rather spoiled child who makes a bad decision, she does not stay that way. She regrets her action, does not allow it to poison her as she grows up, and does what she can to make amends and build a better relationship with her other brother, who has been neglected by the rest of her family. It's thanks to her self-reflection and kindness to her brothers that Celia finds the courage and fortitude to endure the trials she encounters in adulthood. Though it could have done with a few more pages to flesh out a few details, The Summer War is a wonderful little book that gives the reader a new faerie story built upon a solid foundation of traditional faerie stories. Novik doesn't reinvent the wheel so much as take a charming yet perilous left turn into unexpected territory. The clues leading to the solution at the end of the tale are all there, but Novik is an experienced author who doesn't make them so glaring that they spoil the ending. The Summer War is a story about a lot of things, but familial love is the heart and soul of it, and turns it from an ordinary story into something enchanting. — Thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey for providing me with an advance copy for review. Traveling in Books is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell Traveling in Books that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments.
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Monday, 1 September 2025
Book Review: The Summer War
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