2023 fantasy. Kayla's day out at the State Fair suddenly includes a
stranger telling her that she's the daughter of the previous Dark Lord
of Zaradwin, and bringing her and her family across worlds to commence
her rule of evil.
Wrede is clearly having fun here; both Stella Gibbons and Niccolò
Machiavelli are given credit for inspiration, and the small but
significant literature of normal people being dropped into tropey
fantasy is clearly an influence. I can't remember who first said that
the vital thing for fantasy with a child protagonist is to get the
parents out of the way; but Wrede violates that rule too, while still
giving Kayla plenty of agency.
Kayla, her (adoptive) mother Riki, and her little brother Del, are
dumped into a world where there's Light and Dark, and a Final Battle
at least once per generation. The locals are surprised when Kayla
doesn't start executing people for impertinence; she's surprised that
they haven't worked on repairing the castle in the years since the
latest Final Battle. There are clashes of attitude, and people who
clearly have their own plans that don't necessarily include Kayla's
well-being; at the same time Kayle tries to find out just what she's
inherited, and why things are the way they are.
There are plot threads that are started and don't get resolved (sbe
rknzcyr gur dhrfgvba bs Qry'f zntvp, naq ubj Evxv pbzrf gb nonaqba ure
vagragvba bs trggvat gur snzvyl ubzr nf fbba nf cbffvoyr), and the
ending is rather abrupt, but I enjoyed this particularly for Wrede's
obvious fluency in and mastery of fantasy, and her determination not
to use easy but inadequate answers to difficult questions.