Review: ‘The Wild Girl’ by Kate Forsyth

Dortchen Wild fell in love with Wilhelm Grimm the first time she saw him.

Growing up in the small German kingdom of Hessen-Cassel in early nineteenth century, Dortchen Wild is irresistibly drawn to the boy next door, the young and handsome fairy tale scholar Wilhelm Grimm.

It is a time of war, tyranny and terror. Napoleon Bonaparte wants to conquer all of Europe, and Hessen-Cassel is one of the first kingdoms to fall. Forced to live under oppressive French rule, the Grimm brothers decide to save old tales that had once been told by the firesides of houses grand and small all over the land.

Dortchen knows many beautiful old stories, such as ‘Hansel and Gretel’, ‘The Frog King’ and ‘Six Swans’. As she tells them to Wilhelm, their love blossoms. Yet the Grimm family is desperately poor, and Dortchen’s father has other plans for his daughter. Marriage is an impossible dream.

Dortchen can only hope that happy endings are not just the stuff of fairy tales.

I finished The Wild Girl more than a week ago, but haven’t been able to review since it due to a massive book hangover. I’m also finding this review difficult to draft, so please excuse any incoherence on my part!

Like the last of Kate Forsyth’s books that I read (Dancing on Knives), The Wild Girl was a hard read. Not the prose — the prose was lovely — but the subject matter. This isn’t a fluffy romance between a scholar and the apothecary’s daughter. This is a gritty tale about the realities of life in nineteenth century Germany, the horrors of war, and the awful things one human being can do to another.

Importantly, and I want to say this up front: this book needs to come with a trigger warning for rape. I had to put The Wild Girl down for two days after one particularly traumatic scene. What enticed me back to it was to see the perpetrator get his just desserts. The subject is delicately handled by Forsyth, not gratuitously or in a fashion designed to titillate, but in a way that fills you with a creeping sense of horror and dread.

It’s something to be aware of.

The parallels between Dortchen’s life and the various fairytales she tells Wilhelm at different times are masterful. The telling of “All Kinds of Fur” in particular was so moving it gave me chills. The control that society and religion gave men over the females of their households was both illuminating and scary, and made me so thankful that I live now! All the fancy dresses in the world aren’t worth subjugation. I loved Dortchen’s sister Hanne for her scandalous rebellion against the patriarchy.

One of the other parallels with Dancing on Knives (other than the awful father figure) is that The Wild Girl too has a hint of magical realism. The herb lore that Dortchen has is fascinating, making her something of a nurse to her loved ones … and some of her housekeeper’s superstitions lead in the direction of pagan magic. There aren’t any flashy spells or anything; nothing happens that can’t be explained. But I adored that touch nonetheless, and it gave Dortchen a chance to rebel in her own, tiny way — to try and effect a world that is so utterly out of her control.

A special mention goes to Old Marie, said housekeeper. She was one of my favourite characters, warming every scene she was in.

Part of me wishes that Dortchen and Wilhelm hadn’t had to wait so long for their happily ever after, but Forsyth was bound by the facts given this is historical fiction. (The amount of research that has gone into The Wild Girl is staggering.) She has come up with a convincing, albeit poignant, explanation for why the relationship evolved the way it did.

It’s a hard read, but The Wild Girl is an example of a story by an author who is the master of her craft.

Review: ‘Burn’ by Paula Weston (The Rephaim #4)

Gaby remembers everything.

For a year she believed she was a backpacker chilling out in Pandanus Beach. Working at the library. Getting over the accident that killed her twin brother.

Then Rafa came to find her and Gaby discovered her true identity as Gabe: one of the Rephaim. Over a hundred years old. Half angel, half human, all demon-smiting badass—and hopelessly attracted to the infuriating Rafa.

Now she knows who faked her memories, and how—and why it’s all hurtling towards a massive showdown between the forces of heaven and hell.

More importantly, she remembers why she’s spent the last ten years wanting to seriously hurt Rafa.

I considered not reviewing this book on the blog and instead just writing a paragraph on Goodreads, since Burn is the fourth and final book in the Rephaim series, and if you’re considering starting this series you’re more likely to be swayed by a review of the first or maybe the second book. (I reviewed the second one, Haze, here and the third, Shimmer, here. I didn’t review the first on the blog, Shadows, because I read it before I was hugely into reviewing things. But I did write a short review on Goodreads.)

Then I remembered I’m behind on the Australian Women Writers challenge for this year. I’m aiming to read and review fifteen books by Aussie women, and I’m at nine.

So. Here it is, folks.

Some people review things with gifs.

If I were to review this book with gifs, these are some of the ones I’d use:

My excitement when I sat down to read Burn

How all the talk about beaches made me feel

Who Gaby made me think of

Gah!

How I felt after staying up past my bedtime two nights in a row to finish Burn

And some people review things with lists.

Here is a list of things you should know about Burn, and the Rephaim series more generally.

• It is Aussie urban fantasy. That means that, while some parts of it are set in the US and Europe, a large chunk of it is set on the Australian east coast, in a little tourist town backed by rainforests. The setting is divine. And made me want to go to the beach so badly it hurts. Hence the Olaf gif.
• It has angels, half-angels and demons in it. The demons are all bad, but everyone else can best be described as “shades of grey”. And not the creepy billionaire kind.
• OMG, the characters. Gaby. Rafa. Jude. (I still have a mad crush on Jude, but Rafa comes a close second.) There were a lot of extra characters that I found harder to keep straight at first, due to the gap between books, but Burn has a handy list at the front that tells you what faction the various Rephaim are in. It’s a lifesaver.
• The plot is so fast it leaves you breathless. I’m not kidding, guys. The four books of this series are set over less than two weeks. Sure, there are flashbacks, particularly in Burn — an entire section is devoted to Gaby’s returned memories. I loved it; given I’d spent the first three books guessing what on earth she and Jude got up to, it was very gratifying to finally find out. Now all four books have been released, you won’t experience the excruciating wait that I did!
• There are actual LOLs. It’s not a comedy, but the tension is relieved through humour.
• Speaking of relieving tension… there is some heat to a couple of scenes, but it’s not graphic. We’re talking hot, not scorching. No naughty words are used or anything. 😉

I gave the preceding three books in the series five stars, so it’ll probably be no surprise to you that I gave this one five stars too. You all need to read these books. Now. Go.