How can you protect yourself, much less your loved ones, from someone with the power to take over anyone’s body and work them like a puppet?
That’s the conundrum Hester faces when a sorceress comes to call and gets to work seducing her brother so she can become lady of the house and kick Hester, an old maid, out on the street.
Of course, Hester doesn’t know when the woman and her daughter, Cordelia, show up that the woman is a sorceress. But she does see her putting the moves on her brother, and although her brother is sweet, he’s also not very bright and is liable to be swayed by a beautiful face.
Hester is in her 50s and unmarried. She fell in love with a friend of hers decades ago, and although he proposed, she turned him down because she wanted to maintain her freedom.
That decision almost backfires when a sorceress comes to call. If she had succeeded in her plan to marry Hester’s brother, take over the estate, and kick out Hester, there’s nothing Hester could have done about it.
It’s never stated when this book takes place. I think a country is mentioned, but it’s a fictional country.
Certainly men hold all the power, women wear dresses all the time, horses are the primary mode of transportation, and class is important. Cordelia’s mother pretends to be a wealthy widow who was robbed on the road so she can pass for nobility and stay as a guest at a nobleman’s house.
So, Hester has a lot to lose if her brother marries this sorceress, and at the same time, there’s nothing much she can do about it.
So she does one of the few things she can. She invites her attractive, lively friend who used to hook up with her brother for a visit.
That goes horribly wrong, as does Plan B, but don’t worry, they get the sorceress in the end, and Cordelia gets to live happily ever after with them.
The story alternates between Cordelia’s POV and Hester’s POV, which means the reader knows the visitor is a sorceress with evil intentions long before Hester figures it out.
In this case, the apple falls very far from the tree because Cordelia doesn’t want to hurt anyone. She’s the one who warns Hester about her mom and ends up working with Hester and her friends to bring down her mom.
There are a couple of times in the book when her mom seems to be testing Cordelia to see if she has any magical abilities, but determines she does not.
But hints later in the book, especially at the very end, made me question that assumption.
The audiobook has two narrators, one who narrates Cordelia’s chapters and one who sounds older narrating Hester’s chapters.
I didn’t love Nettle & Bone, so I had reservations about this one, but I loved every minute of it and I was sad when it ended.
That said, I did appreciate the Nettle & Bone Easter egg in this book.