Thornfruit by Felicia Davin
There were two secrets in Varenx House, and Alizhan was one of them.
Alizhan can’t see faces, but she can read minds. Her mysterious ability leaves her unable to touch or be touched without excruciating pain. Rescued from abandonment and raised by the wealthy and beautiful Iriyat ha-Varensi, Alizhan has grown up in isolation, using her gift to steal secrets from Iriyat’s rivals, the ruling class of Laalvur. But Iriyat keeps secrets of her own.
When Alizhan discovers that she isn’t the only one of her kind, and that a deadly plot threatens everyone like her, there’s only one person she can trust.
Ev liked having a secret. None of the other girls in the village had a thief-friend.
Evreyet Umarsad—“Ev” to her parents and her one friend—longs to be the kind of hero she reads about in books. But the rest of the world feels impossibly far away from her life on a farm outside Laalvur. Ev will never lay eyes on the underground city of Adappyr, the stars of the Nightward Coast, or the venomous medusas that glow in the dark depths of the sea.
At least on her weekly trip to the market, Ev gets to see her thief—the strange young woman who slips by her cart and playfully steals a handful of thornfruit. When the thief needs help, Ev doesn’t hesitate. Together, they uncover a conspiracy that draws them all over Laalvur and beyond.
Thornfruit is the first book in The Gardener’s Hand trilogy.
Representation Includes
- Bisexual female protagonist (Ev)
- Lesbian protagonist (Alizhan)
- Sequels include a F/F/N-B romance
Content Warnings
emotional abuse (of a main character, while she’s a child, by a parental figure—mostly in backstory, but often referred to), manipulation/gaslighting (aided by magical memory alteration), kidnapping, pregnancy, an attempted coerced abortion, physical violence, mild gore (some minor characters get, uh, dissolved by a sea monster), murder, torture, unethical experiments on children, prejudice (mostly against people with magic, but also there are references to prejudices based on ability, skin color, foreign nationality, religion, sex, sexuality), arson, supporting character dies in a tidal wave, tidal wave causes general destructionAwards
- Nominated for the Bisexual Book Award