Grace & Fury
Tracy Banghart
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In a world where women have no rights, sisters Serina and Nomi face two very different fates: one in the palace, the other on an island prison where women must fight to survive.
Serina has spent her whole life preparing to become a Grace – selected to stand by the heir to the throne as a shining example of the perfect woman.
But her headstrong and rebellious younger sister has a dangerous secret, and one wrong move could cost both sisters everything.
Can Serina fight? And will Nomi win?
The first thing I have to say about Grace & Fury is that I think I’ve actually read it before and have just forgot. There’s one scene that caused a spark of recognition and then it repeated for some of the other core scenes throughout the book, mostly for Nomi’s storyline. However, whilst I did recognise the book, and predicted a lot based on this – the ending was a good surprise still which is good.
The world building around the ruler, heir and the highly patriarchal society is done so well. There’s little things that stand out to me, such as it being illegal for women to learn how to read. They’re purposely refused the tools to better themselves in multiple ways at risk of death or incarceration. Women, including our main characters, have had to learn to be highly adaptable in a world where women have been forced to be lesser.
The stand-out part of this book is the emphasis on sisterly love (and siblings, as they have a brother too!). When Nomi is chosen instead of Serina, and even when Serina is taken away there’s definitely a chance for resentment to occur. However, even when they could definitely place blame, they never hate one another and their goals are to get back to each other.
I found from the start that I was leaning into Nomi’s chapters as I found her to be a more interesting character. But as Serina’s storyline builds and the cracks in her “Grace” trained behaviour seems to show, she becomes a much bigger player. I liked both POVs for different reasons, Serina’s was more action packed and showed us more women who are defying the rulers. Nomi was very much a bird trapped in a cage, but it had a more political edge and her chapters gave us a lot more information.
On top of the two sisters, there’s a whole host of other characters that bring something to this book. Nomi’s world is surrounded by the other Grace’s, the heir, and the heir’s brother. All of these are people who she can’t quite trust, and there’s a lot of secrets to found about each of them. Serina is taken to a prison island that is half run by the guards, but mostly run by clans of women. She must make them trust her, see her as a strong woman, and convince them to help her. Similar to Nomi, there’s a lot to find out about both the island itself and the women Serina meets.
The overall pace of Grace & Fury can be quite slow and I think this may have been why I remembered some of the book but not all. (I may have DNF’d it before as I was surprised at the end!?). However I did read it really quickly as I wanted to know what would happen to both Nomi and Serina.
Positives of Grace & Fury
- Sisterly Bond
- Multiple secondary characters with depth
Negatives of Grace & Fury
- Slow pacing
- Unmemorable
