Lawless’s grasp on the history of Ireland interweaves so deftly with the magics of her world—they feel necessary and true to the time period, and never feel “too powerful” to the point where the threats of patriarchy, warfare, famine, and natural disaster are cheapened. The rivalry between the fire-wielding Fomorians and the Druid-like Tuatha de Danann always underpinned the tensions of the plot, given that our protagonists belong to those factions and that each faction is determined to shape mortal power structures to give themselves some advantage, but the primary evens were just that: mortal power struggles between Irish and Norse Viking men. The time jumps never felt jarring, because political machinations take time to come to fruition. And because, though there’s clean cause-and-effect plot happening, CGFM is at its core an incredibly character driven story. 

The female leads, Fodla and Gormflaith, belong to different/warring factions of magic users and are far older than the mortals whose destinies they’re shaping, but their stories are still so tremendously human. Perhaps F more than G… Though I will say that I understood G’s ruthlessness given her upbringing, and that she’s one of the last of her kind, and given that she’s actually lived as a married woman in a culture where autonomy for women is a laughable concept. I think that when you’re incredibly powerful and your only avenue for expressing that power is advancing your male progeny, your choices might veer toward what we mortals would consider “morally gray”, especially when you’ve lived many human lifetimes and spent those lifetimes being abused and used by old men. To then have that same son

betray her to another life of marital rape for his own political advancement is heartbreaking.

While I’d normally love to see a toxic boy-mom have that attitude punished, I very much felt for G by the end of her arc in this book, and am excited to see how she will pivot moving forward. I personally am hoping for fire-based revenge. 

All that to say, despite not liking G and her decisions, I was still compelled by her character. As her counterpart, F was far more a moral center to the story, and a lot easier to root for even when various factors made her decision making more naive (like, far more naive. I had to remind myself regularly that she was over a century old). Her relationship with her sister and

grief at her banishment

tugged at my heartstrings, and led to such bittersweet feelings whenever F interacted with her nephew on page. I really enjoyed her slow comearound to the idea that not all men were awful and violent and prone to hurt her, both through seeing her sweet as sugar nephew grow up and through actually interacting with some human men in the first place. I especially loved her desire to use her healing magic to protect and save those who found themselves victims of violence (especially when she bucked up against the council decisions forbidding her from using her magic for ends other than their political Machinations, which of course she doesn’t get to be privy to). 

In short, when I first read Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon, this is what I wished it would be—a female-centric story that doesn’t shy from the fact that it was hard to exist as a woman under such a heavy yoke of patriarchy, but one that doesn’t bash femininity and the worthwhileness of a woman’s viewpoint during times of strife. I loved Fodla’s aversion to war and her mistrust of men, whether or not it was founded, and her slow understanding that the rigid guidelines of her council are more regressive than she can live with. Though I found her motivations suspect and frustrating, Gormflaith’s ruthless approach to consolidating power for her son (and thus, herself) was immensely satisfying. The writing was smooth, clean, and pacey. Lawless’s prose never veers to purple, and it kept me turning pages as much as my care for the characters did. What a great start to the series. I’ll definitely be reading more, and soon.