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Thornfruit by Felicia Davin is a delightful queer fantasy adventure with some interesting world-building twists and memorable characters. Thornfruit follows two girls, Ev and Alizhan, as they come of age in a flurry of intrigue and romantic pining. Ev helps her father take their farm produce to market, practices fighting and self-defense, and longs for adventure like those in her beloved books. One day she sees a ragged girl stealing fruit and helps her out. Alizhan was born with a magical ability and can read minds, and the merest touch of skin sends both her and the other person into a torrent of pain. She’s in service to a noble woman, one of the only people she cannot read and who doesn’t cause her pain, and who uses Alizhan to spy on her rivals. One day in the market she encounters a girl who gives her fruit and only feels friendly towards her, and the experience is so novel she spends the next ten years watching her and thinking about the encounter. A series of events concerning her mistress pulls the wool from Alizhan’s eyes, and she sees that her mistress has more sinister motives than Alizhan imagined. Alizhan flees the city with the only person she can trust to help her – the girl who has felt friendly towards her for ten years, Ev. Together, Alizhan and Ev face human trafficking of kids with abilities, corruption in the highest quarters of the city, and the depths of mutual pining when one of them can read minds.
I found the relationship between Alizhan and Ev very cute, and what drove most of my interest in this book. Ev is tough, smart, determined to do good, and very bisexual. She’s upset when the boy she’s liked since childhood tells her of his engagement to another woman, and she frequently finds other people they encounter attractive. But she likes that Alizhan came to her for help and trusts her, and she finds Alizhan cute. Alizhan, of course, can’t help knowing that Ev is attracted to her. She knows exactly how often everyone around her is thinking about sex or when they’re attracted to someone, but because she feels pain every time she is touched with bare skin, she can’t imagine feeling sexual attraction herself. Also, because she is so immersed in everyone’s minds, she’s face-blind, and so doesn’t understand what guides other people’s attraction. But she likes Ev immensely, because of how Ev feels towards her. I was really interested in both how Alizhan worked to understand how Ev and other people work, and how Ev worked to overcome her instinctive reactions to Alizhan’s gift and help her on her mission. They’re both really cute, even if they haven’t figured out exactly how they’re going to work.
The world-building also has some really interesting elements. The planet doesn’t rotate, and all life is based around that fact, and how close or far away one is from Noon, or whether you’re in a daylight or a twilight or a dark area. Davin comes up with some interesting details to sprinkle though – such as having windowless rooms in the center of buildings in Day areas for sleeping or protecting things from light, or how time is divided up. I was really into the whole idea, and I can’t wait to see it expanded on in the rest of the trilogy, as they travel from a Day city to other zones. Frankly, I would love to know more about how the world at large works, because the global economy must be fascinating, and I hope the other books explore this more.
In conclusion, Thornfruit was a great f/f fantasy read. It was exciting and had a lot to keep my interest high. I was really rooting for Ev and Alizhan as they figured out how to work together and what sort of situation they were in. I definitely recommend this for anyone who wants a fast-paced fantasy read for a cozy night!