A Rush of Wings by Laura E. Weymouth: A Book Review

While the opening didn't immediately hook me, as I was worried that the protagonist would devolve into a whiny, woe-is-me character, I was soon swiftly entranced by this story (and, thankfully, I proved to be worrying for nothing). It's a dark fairytale retelling of an already dark fairytale, The Six Swans, with some changes. Rowenna is no princess, but she is the daughter of a woman, named Mairead, who has the craft (magic). Mairead refuses to teach Enna how to use her own craft because Enna has a short temper, an aggressive(ly protective) nature, and little patience for fools.

​This refusal turns out to be a fatal decision and to have terrible consequences...and yet, I wonder if Mairead could have even taught Enna what she needed to know about her Craft...and who knows what worse things might have happened if circumstances didn't play out as they did?

Here be spoilers...

Anyway, I digress. Like the fairytale(s), Enna's brothers are cursed by a malevolent creature which is, technically, her stepmother—though the entire second half of the original, in which the heroine marries a prince and then gets accused of cannibalism, is dropped for a different and excellent denouement. Enna is also forced to be voiceless most of the time, but in Rush she only has three brothers, and the sort-of-prince she falls in love with is cursed right alongside them.

Contrary to almost everyone in the book's opinion of her, I found Enna to be wonderful. She's not immediately likeable, is abrasive and curt and cutting, but she has a heart full of love, is motivated by love, and sacrifices for love (of family! The romance is almost, but not quite, incidental). It's not often that I find a story with a female heroine and protagonist who can so easily be disliked and is meant to be so by careless readers. She wrestles with her shortcomings and fears and deep seated shamed, and successfully overcomes them where necessary, and learns to appreciate who she is otherwise. In short, I loved her. 

The side characters are also fantastic: I loved Enna's brothers, from rowdy and charming Duncan to pious, sometimes self-righteous Liam, to sweet little Finn. That's not to say they're perfect; like Enna, they have faults and act in ways that made me so incredibly frustrated (except for Finn, who can do no wrong) or feel so hurt on Enna's behalf for how they treated her. But their growth is fantastic and realistic, and the siblings emerge more deeply bonded in the end.

Enna's parents feature less though they haunt the narrative, but they're complex characters too, foolish and wise and often making terrible mistakes, but neither of them are cruel, and the love they have for Enna is clear, even if they don't (and, perhaps, can't) understand her. Her love for them in return is very moving.

Gawen, the love interest, is also wonderful. He's a complex character, in turns manipulative, a liar, deeply traumatized, full of anger, and full of tenderness. He bathes Enna's feet and sings to her, he believes her and stands by her, and he also hides important truths from her and uses her for his own ends. None of this makes him a despicable person; he is instead, like they all are, doing what he thinks he must with the terrible circumstances he's in and, crucially, his heart is a good one.

Elspeth, who eventually teaches Enna how to use her Craft, is also lovely. (Sidenote: I find it a delightful quirk of fate that I've read two books back to back with a character named Elspeth in it, a name which I don't remember coming across all that often before now). She's beautiful and highly skilled with the craft--and also trapped and has been through, and goes through, horror. She does her best. Her best sometimes sucks, especially for Enna. And yet, I liked her and rooted for her, like I rooted for all of them.

Well, all of them except Torr Pendragon. I believe he's connected to Arthurian legends, as there's a theory that King Arthur might have been a Scottish or Welsh warlord, and Torr is a warlord either from Wales or Breton with, of course, that very familiar name. Unlike the noble king of the Round Table, he is an ignoble, vicious tyrant. His is an insidious kind of evil, who draws evil out of others through coercion and corruption. I haven't hated a villain so much in a while. 

Speaking of villains, the fuath who mimics Enna's mother is similarly awful. In fact, it and Torr resemble each other in their cruelty and their desire to consume and control and ruin everyone around them, except the fuath has the singular excuse of simply behaving as is its nature to. It's still terrifying and wicked, and it is easy and uncomplicated to hate it.

And then author Weymouth delivers a masterful twist: she brings us a second fuath, one who is as trapped as Enna is, and makes it a sympathetic amoral character. Genuinely, I was blown away by this and by it and Enna's relationship. It was excellent! I'm excited all over again just thinking about it!

The world of A Rush of Wings was gorgeous, brutal and beautiful in turn. For a book dealing with magic, it's deeply rooted in the natural world of fairy-tale Scotland: with the sea and the wind and the woods, with the witchnettles and the weaving, with the lovely, haunting swans. I loved the atmospheric prose and its immersion of all the senses with its descriptions. It's romantic, gothically so, and thus mildly disturbing (depending on your tolerance for animal cruelty, which is rampant throughout but always treated as a horrific act). 

Speaking of romance, I really enjoyed Gawen and Enna's. The refrain of "scold" and "stray", the way they're frequently unkind to each other but also see each other, understand each other, accept each other, in a way no one else does. They are lonely, hurting, angry souls, but together they find safety, peace, and hope. They're not precisely toxic, but theirs is not a sweet romance either. Or rather, there is sweetness, and it's perfectly mixed with bitterness. Basically, it's complicated and messy and I loved it.

But the greater romance, the one that moved me more, was the one between Enna and the wind. I love how it calls for her and works for her with joy once she learns to harness it, I love the strength it gives her, and I love the way it refers to her as "our love, our light, our dark-hearted girl", how its love is one without human understanding or limitation. It "would fly for her, die for her, kill for her, make heart's blood spill for her" as only a literal force of nature can, and it's frightening until it isn't, because Rowenna is a person who can be trusted with the wind's power because despite everything, she is not cruel. God, it's an exhilarating relationship, and so tender it nearly made me weep; for a very long time, the only thing that Enna feels wholly loved by is the wind. 

Ultimately, I was deeply entranced by Rush. The plot was compelling and well-written, well-paced; the characters were complex and fully realized; the world felt real and terrible and great. I would read this again, I want to own a physical copy of it, I want everyone I know to read it.

Writing this review, writing my thoughts out about it, made me realize that my 4.5 stars ranking isn't right. A Rush of Wings is a 5-star read for me. I hope you'll give it a chance, and I hope you'll love this dark-hearted book too.