This is my second book of JJA Harwood’s and I enjoyed this book more than her first. She seems to have developed as an author with a more rounded story.

The story, like her first, is dark but this time we have the fae to contend with. This isn’t a story with a sexy fairy, they are mean, they are weird looking and they kidnap children. I say they, it’s mainly The Dreamer, who is the antagonist of the story.

During a gathering in the woods The Dreamer kidnaps Moira Jeans friends and what follows is a fast paced story of how she can bargain to get them back.

There some elements I enjoyed but others I didn’t think were needed, like the sudden Bi story line. It felt like it was thrown in there because she wanted to tick a LGBTQ+ box rather than actually being needed. It was so out of the blue it didn’t make any sense, and then suddenly it was forgotten about. And the ending? Again it was rushed and not clean. This was my biggest problem with The Shadow in the Glass, the ending sucked. I was worried it was going to be the same for the book, it was better but it still wasn’t great. If she was writing a series I wouldn’t mind as things could get resolved, but they are all stand alone books!

Thank you for Netgalley for a copy of the book in return for an honest review.

Finally read this one. A historical fantasy set in the aftermath of the Great War, Moira Jean Kinross lives with her widowed mother in a small estate village in Scotland. Mrs Kinross is the village nurse, and has her hands full with the Spanish Flu. Moira and her friends inadvertantly awake one of the Fair Folk who takes Moira’s friends to dance underhill, and Moira must find a way to rescue them before Beltane comes and the tithe must be paid.

The story has echoes of Tam Lin and The Twelve Dancing Princesses, but is very much darker in tone. Although set post-WWI, I actually didn’t get much sense of the period; in some ways the story could have been set much earlier without much difference.

I liked it.

An enjoyable fantasy book about the troublesome and deadly Fae in Scotland Post-WWI. Whilst I enjoyed this for the darker vibes with the small-town prejudice, reminiscent of The Crucible, the pacing was slow at times and some of the mystery elements could have used more teasing. This was a refreshing take on the Fae story, which in recent years has become over-saturated with century-old brooding hunks, completely removed from the folklore they were based on. Definitely an author I will keep an eye out for in future.

I enjoyed this book, the writing was good and the world was well-researched. It was quite slowly paced throughout but I found the ending rushed, there was lots of build up yet it ended quite quickly with much left unmentioned. The world was very detailed and the characters were full of personality and dimension. Overall this book was good, but not one of my all time favourites, there was just nothing extraordinary about it. If you enjoy books about fae you will definitely enjoy this!!

The story was different, had a good pace, a character with good development, and a satisfying ending. However, I didn't love it.

It’s the year 1919, and Moira Jean and her friends are helping their village prepare the land for harvest, praying that it will be a good one that will see them all through the winter. Preparing land that could be taken from them at any moment if the landowners decide that they’re selling it or doing something else with it. In the year following the end of the First World War everyone is struggling. The Spanish Influenza has run rampant throughout the world, adding more suffering and taking lives that had been spared in the war.

Life doesn’t just feel unfair for Moira Jean, it feels lifeless, her dreams shattered, her future empty, null and void. The chance to party to in the woods with some stolen alcohol with her friends is a brief blissful escape from the toll of every day life and her painful memories. One night something joins them when they dance, a powerful force that brings with it new dancers that don’t look quite right in the flickering flames. Moira Jean isn’t quite sure what she’s seeing, and she’s drunk a lot by that point, so she thinks nothing of it.

Until she wakes up the next day and her friends are gone. They’ve been gone for months, off to other cities to work and no one believes her when she says they were here yesterday helping with the harvest.

Embarking on a quest to find her friends, Moira Jean finds herself entering a bargain with a powerful fae. The creatures of myth and legend are real it seems, and her only ally is the strange woman in the village that everyone avoids. With her help Moira starts to learn about the fae while trying to keep up with the work around the village as her community feels the loss of those they don’t even remember being there.

The Thorns Remain quite rightly should be a very dull book because Moira Jean’s life is dull. It’s the dreary life of a young woman in 1919. If you’re expecting pretty dresses and balls, then this isn’t the book for you. What stops it from being monotonous is Harwood’s writing. From the first few scenes I was captivated by Moira Jean and village life. This is helped by the fact that the book starts with a flash forward, and then we get the full story. As we go through each scene we’re waiting for the story to catch up, to see how we get to the part we’ve already been given a glimpse of.

While Moira Jean works to get her friends back her actions do not go unnoticed by some members of the village. Completely unaware of what is happening, they become suspicious of Moira Jean, going as far as to accuse her of crimes and question her sanity even as she’s doing everything to help them. The way Harwood interweaves the fae with village life only emphasises the harsh reality of it and just how tempting it would be to give in and accept what they’re offering.

Harwood deals with a lot of hard hitting subjects in The Thorns Remain, such as grief, mental health and disabilities. One of Moira Jean’s friends returned from the war with the loss of one eye, and another has an injured foot as a result of polio and uses a crutch to walk. By setting her novel in the period of the Spanish flu, Harwood is able to explore all the feelings surrounding a pandemic without encroaching on too recent feelings related to COVID-19. The backdrop of a wee highland village cut off from the world is both miles away from and yet similar enough to what we all felt during the lockdown that the reader can connect with the villagers while keeping a safe distance emotionally. As a result The Thorns Remain is a multi-layered emotionally charged novel.

I wasn’t sure how this one would turn out, and it ended up being an enjoyable read with interesting characters. It is quite a slow read though, which I personally didn’t find to be a bad thing. There was plenty happening to keep me engaged, to keep me interested in where the story was going. I’ve seen a review list the diversity of this book as low, and I’m not sure how they came to that conclusion. If you’re viewing diversity only in terms of race then yes, diversity is not just low, it’s non-existent. However, the book is set in a small and out of the way village in the Scottish highlands, emphasis on small and out of the way. With that in mind the lack of racial diversity is historically accurate. There is a lot of disability representation as mentioned and there is also LGBTQIA+ representation (gay, lesbian, bisexual and gender-fluid).

The result is a well-rounded novel. Harwood’s take on the fae has lots of connections to Scottish folklore, and this combined with the historical Scottish setting makes The Thorns Remain a fabulously unique read.

The Thorns Remain by JJA Harwood

I received an advance review copy for free thanks to NetGalley and Magpie and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Blurb

A dance with the fae will change everything

1919. In a highland village forgotten by the world, harvest season is over and the young who remain after war and flu have ravaged the village will soon head south to make something of themselves.

Moira Jean and her friends head to the forest for a last night of laughter before parting ways. Moira Jean is being left behind. She had plans to leave once – but her lover died in France and with him, her future. The friends light a fire, sing and dance. But with every twirl about the flames, strange new dancers thread between them, music streaming from the trees.

The fae are here.

Suddenly Moira Jean finds herself all alone, her friends spirited away. The iron medal of her lost love, pinned to her dress, protected her from magic.

My Opinion

Having read this book I am not sure how I feel. I started the book and didn't take anything in, so I had to start it over again. Whilst I read over 50% of this book in one sitting it was easily a book that I could put down and it just couldn't hold my attention. A tale full of magic and mystery with some great descriptions to help the reader picture the area.

Starts slow and then gains pace. Whilst this will appeal to many people it sadly did not work for me.

Rating 3/5

Sorry, I didn't love this one! I think it's a case of personal preference but I DNF. 3 stars from me. I think this book was well written, but I didn't gel with the story. Love the cover, very enticing.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Stories about the fae are common in YA/NA fiction, and while Harwood does do things slightly differently by rooting the tale in post-WWI Ireland and Irish mythology generally, it's not really enough to make it stand out fully from the crowd. I think perhaps we just didn't get enough of the characters pre-Fae encounter to really care what happened to them.

3 ⭐️⭐️ ⭐️

Thank you so much to Harpercollins UK and NetGalley for an e-arc of this book.

This book had a lot of potential, smalls Scottish village, the fae and bargains with them.

But it all kinda fell a bit short. The village and the villagers wasn’t developed very well. There kept being mentions of the family that owned the village and had the big house, and the threat of the villagers losing their homes but this never came to anything so I’m confused why it kept being brought up.

The female MC wasn’t ever developed fully, and I felt like her potential bisexuality was shoehorned in with no purpose and it again didn’t go anywhere.

The Fae themselves were also really underdeveloped as characters.

This book was fine for a light fantasy read, and I enjoyed the authors debut, but I do think this could have been a lot better as the premise was really good.

Fae and historical fiction - what a fun ride! The Thorns Remain is more of a slow burn than I was anticipating so it did feel like it dragged in parts however, what captivated me was the vivid way in which the fae and the world were described. It definitely set the scene and it made for an interesting read. Would be good for someone looking to ease into the fantasy genre but for a seasoned fantasy reader, I think the pacing is a little too slow.

Many thanks to HarperCollins and JJA Harwood for the advanced copy of The Thorns Remain via NetGalley, in return for my honest and unbiased review. Quick note: I don’t recap plots in my reviews, as it’s easy enough to read the book’s synopsis and blurbs, I purely focus on my feelings & opinions of how the books makes me feel.

This was a book of two halves for me.

I really enjoy stories about the fae, so this book felt like it was well within my wheelhouse and the synopsis ticked many of my boxes: a ‘darkly handsome Lord of the Fae’, a bargain, a time limit; all these are things I enjoy reading about.

And whilst the story did indeed deliver on these tropes, it still didn’t quite push that ‘satisfaction button’ for me. The pacing wasn’t right for me. The first three quarters of the book was a slow slog, whereas the last quarter felt rushed. There were a few a few half-hearted puzzles, but these were solved almost immediately.

Overall, the book was pleasant but just didn’t speak to me.

Moods: dark, mysterious
Pace: slow
Character development: weak
Plot or character driven: plot
Diversity: low
Spice: 0/5
Trigger warnings: Death, War

Rating: 3/5

The Thorns Remain is a tale of the fae set in Scotland where a group of friends face potentially deadly consequences for forgetting the old ways.

Moira Jean has lived in a small highland village her whole life, but she and her childhood sweetheart Angus always planned to get away. However her life is turned upside down when he goes off to war and doesn’t return, leaving her heartbroken, pitied, and lost. At the end of harvest season she convinces her friends to have a drink and a dance around a bonfire to celebrate, however soon they are joined by shadowy figures, and when Moira Jean wakes the next day she’s alarmed to find that her friends are nowhere to be seen and no one but her is concerned about it. Soon they will all learn that the fae are not human, and it doesn’t pay to forget them.

I enjoyed Thorns Remain and liked that the fae in it were the inhuman tricksters from traditional stories rather than the more humanised version we tend to see nowadays. The Dreamer is distinctly inhuman in his dealings and his mannerisms, and seeing him and Moira Jean interact is interesting because of this.

I loved the highland setting and the way the author wove in both small town suspicion and prejudice, as well as treatment of women at the time (especially by other women) into the story.

I felt Moira Jean’s grief was realistic, as was the way she was dealing with it (or not dealing with it, as the case may be). It was heartbreaking to hear about Angus, and the way this was slowly revealed to the reader over time was interesting to me.

Unfortunately, the ending felt a little flat to me after all the build up. A lot happened very quickly, the main threat had been barely mentioned until then, and seemed to be overcome very quickly. However, I was glad that the epilogue went the way it did, because it felt most true to the story and characters.

Overall, Thorns Remain was an enjoyable read with an engaging setting and interesting characters.

I don't really feel like this book was actually for me.

The pacing was slightly off. It was too slow for me when I feel like it should have been a bit more fast sometimes dragging too much that I wasn't sure I wanted to continue. I don't like when a story makes me feel like this as it can feel like a chore to get through. Reading should be an enjoyment.

Having said that the language used was incredibly descriptive giving me the feeling of being inside of the story. I also liked the way the magic in the story was described, it was interesting.

I liked the main character as well. She was strong and assertive.

Can I just start by saying how beautiful this book is! I am just finding my groove with fantasy and loved The Shadow in the Glass so this seemed like a great book to pick up. Moira Jean is definitely a strong character and you have to admire her determination to save her friends, I would have liked more background on them. The descriptions of the fae and the world the author has created are beautiful too.

Unfortunately I did find this one quite slow and hard going at times. It felt that we often went off on tangents about Scottish folklore and lost the thread of the story. The chapters were very long which made it harder to pick up and put down.

This book was not my thing. The synopsis really spoke to me, and I wanted to enjoy it so badly, but it fell completely flat for me. There were all of 5 chapters in this book, which didn't work for me. Other than that, the writing style didn't grip me, and it resulted in me not being invested in this book at all. I'm still very saddened that it was not for me.

I loved the premise and enjoyed the story, but something was lacking. I found that I knew too little about the taken teenagers to really care about them, and I didn't feel that I got to know Moira Jean at any deep level - the character building felt superficial. I love Scottish folklore though, and the different fae that Moira Jean encounters were fascinating.

Thank you so much HarperCollins and Netgalley for a copy of The Thorns Remain by JJA Harwood.

Everything about this book appealed to me. And I was right.

First off the setting - I loved that it was Scottish lore and it leaned into that. A lot of these types of books are based in America so it was nice to read about something closer to home. I also know a bit about Scottish mythology as it is close to Irish myths so that was nice.

Addie La Rue is one of my favourite books so I was excited by the comparison. And while it wasn't 100 per cent the same I certainly got the same tone.

Can't wait to read more by this author.

This book had me gripped from the beginning to the very end!

I loved the magical system, I loved the FMC and all the emotions that we lived through her!

This book has fae, romance, suspense, drama - it is a true rollercoster of emotions!

The only downside is that the book sometimes was quite slow paced and maybe a few pages too long but overall a fantastic read!

This is a beautiful book that has a gorgeous nostalgic atmosphere. The story is set in a remote Scottish village where the traditional way of life is impacted by the social upheaval post WW1 and the influenza epidemic.
Some tenants still cling to the old ways of life, others fear for the future, and many of the young adults are preparing to head off to the larger towns and cities to find employment and new opportunities. Moira and her friends decide to have one last night of merry making before their lives go in separate directions. Unwittingly they call upon the capricious Lord of the Land Under the Hill who spirits the group away, leaving only Moira who strikes a bargain to bring her friends back safely to the village. The danger posed by the various fae folk that Moira encounters in her task is juxtaposed with the treatment she suffers from the villagers who distrust any behaviour that is deemed out of the ordinary and start to shun her. Her stoicism and generous nature really endeared her to me and I genuinely cared what was going to happen to her.

Weaving folklore, magic and mystery with the story is beautifully imagined. There is a sense of longing throughout the story that really engaged me; whether this was longing for a lost love, longing to maintain the status quo, longing for the future or longing for the impossible. I really adored this atmospheric book and look forward to more stories from the author.

My thanks go to the publishers and NetGalley for the advanced copy in return for an honest review.