Review: 'Mountains Made of Glass' by Scarlett St. Clair
Pub. Date: 3/7/2023
Publisher: Sourcebooks; Bloom Books
"Could you love me?" he whispered. The question stole my breath and burned my lungs in the silence that followed.
I wanted to answer, to whisper yes into the space between us, but I was afraid.
All Gesela's life, her home village of Elk has been cursed. And it isn't a single curse—it is one after another, each to be broken by a villager, each with devastating consequences. When Elk's well goes dry, it is Gesela's turn to save her town by killing the toad that lives at the bottom. Except...the toad is not a toad at all. He is an Elven prince under a curse of his own, and upon his death, his brothers come for Gesela, seeking retribution.
As punishment, the princes banish Gesela to live with their seventh brother, the one they call the beast. Gesela expects to be the prisoner of a hideous monster, but the beast turns out to be exquisitely beautiful, and rather than lock her in a cell, he offers Gesela a deal. If she can guess his true name in seven days, she can go free.
Gesela agrees, but there is a hidden catch—she must speak his name with love in order to free him, too.
But can either of them learn to love in time?
Gesela lives in Elk, which is a truly cursed place. From golden apples to animal transformations, something is always going wrong and someone is always made to fix it, whatever the consequences may be. When her turn comes to help the village, she discovers that the frog she killed is in fact one of seven Elven brothers and that this is only the beginning of her trouble. Now she is stuck with the seventh brother and has to guess his name if she doesn't want to be stuck forever. Gesela is delightfully feisty and so done with most of the nonsense in Elk and the Enchanted Forest. But the prince, Casamir, is something else. Torn between intense attraction and intense dislike, the dance between the two is delightfully catty and steamy. I somehow hadn't expected the level of spiciness this novella would carry, so the first time I came across a swear word I was delighted. I haven't read an E-rated romance in a while, so I enjoyed the explicitness and St. Clair's willingness to engage with all the tropes from insta-lust to fairy dust. The romance is very much at the heart of the tale and while it didn't super-grip me, it made for a fun afternoon.
I should have known what I was in for from the beginning as the foreword just said 'For the f*ck of it'. St. Clair's story is beautifully irreverent, combining fairy tale creatures and themes from all kinds of different cultures together into a joyful whole. The writing is very straightforward but in a clear and descriptive way. It is quite hard, I imagine, to make it look this smooth and easy. As this is a novella, there is not a whole lot of back-and-forth, or wallowing in intense feelings. The speed of the plot, with the novella's length, means that you don't get any of the intense inner monologuing for pages and pages which often frustrates me. The switching perspectives between Gesela and Casimir is also fun, because it allows for one of my favourite tropes "fools who don't know they may be in love". It also added to the spicy scenes, because you got to see it from both points of view. I also enjoyed the way St. Clair played with some of the familiar fairy tale tropes, like the Prince Charming-figure, the selkie, or even the little elves in the closet. Also hello to a delightful enchanted Mirror! The ending, specifically the last chapter, was also a delight because it fully went along with the "f*ck it" approach and upturned what one might expect a fantasy heroine to do. I'm very much here for St. Clair's Fairytale Retellings and will happily dedicate a sunny afternoon to any future ones.
I give this novella...
3 Universes!
Mountains Made of Glass is a lovely mishmash of fairy tales, bringing together various traditions into a funny and steamy story of love.
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