Starred Review It's rare that a prequel can stand alone while enhancing the first title, but Turtschaninoff follows Maresi (2017) with a riveting page-turner that tells how the Red Abbey, a women-only sanctuary on the tiny island of Menos, came to be. Chapter headings clearly announce the six different narrators, but Turtschaninoff's skill in creating distinctive voices makes it easy to follow the interconnecting plots. The unifying threads in the characters' stories are the existence and celebration of magic, respect for the earth, and the need to stand up to a horrific bully whose lust and ambition threaten multiple kingdoms. There's remarkable diversity cial and socioeconomic well as a character who identifies as a woman but is both male and female in her body. But what sets this apart from other fantasies is the degree of character development. Readers see each narrator through the eyes of the five other narrators, making for complex, multilayered, and wholly believable portraits. The story of the matriarch who loses all her children save one daughter is especially powerful. Feminists of all ages will appreciate this positive portrayal of a matriarchy.

This prequel to Maresi chronicles the early lives of the founding sisters of the Red Abbey, an island refuge for girls who have been abused. Turtschaninoff evokes colorful backstories and complex psyches, ultimately weaving these women's relationships, personalities, and experiences into a potent, collaborative self-rescue from bondage. The backdrop of sexual violence is difficult, but in the foreground is a fierce exposition of female courage and resilience.

A man harnesses a spiritual power and uses it to destroy women.This prequel about the founding of the all-female abbey of Maresi (2017) begins across the sea. Kabira's 19; Iskan, the vizier's son, visits her family regularly, but is he courting Kabira or her sister? In this wealthy, formal, Asian-esque fantasy culture, there's no way to know. Kabira shows Iskan—who's an irredeemably vile antagonist at the level of King Leck in Kristin Cashore's Graceling Realm—a spring called Anji that holds "the primordial life force." Iskan drinks Anji's water and never looks back. He kills Kabira's family, marries her, rapes her continually, aborts her daughters, and steals her sons. As decades pass, Iskan acquires new women (buying them as slaves, stealing them from other cultures; their religions and gifts vary). Each narrates in first person. He rapes and batters them, drinking more and more of Anji's water; he lays waste to masses of people. The prose flows, elegant and smooth, with colorful settings. Turtschaninoff writes mothering-related trauma searingly but underemphasizes rape trauma despite the constancy of the act; inexplicably, the word "rape" never even appears. The women's skin colors and cultures vary, though the darkest-skinned woman is exoticized.Late solaces—the escape, the abbey's founding, one partnership between women—can't outweigh the toll of misogynistic torture in this heavy piece. (maps, character list) (Fantasy. 15-adult)