A richly illustrated and romantic origin story of Mary E. Pearson's Remnant universe, the world of the BookTok sensations Dance of Thieves and Vow of Thieves and the New York Times-bestselling Remnant Chronicles.
Before borders were drawn, before treaties were signed, before wars were waged anew, before the great kingdoms of the Remnant were even born and the world of old was only a hazy slate of memory told in story and legend, a girl and her family fought to survive.
And that girl’s name was Morrighan.
Discover the origin story of the Remnant universe, penned by the New York Times–bestselling master storyteller Mary E. Pearson, in this lush collector’s edition prequel with lavish illustrations, a romance for the ages, and a magic that stirs the heart.
I first read Mary E. Pearson's Morrighan wayyy back in August of 2016, but when this gorgeous illustrated and extended edition released in 2022 I still decided to buy it because I did love The Remnant Chronicles and thought I'd love to have the physical copy as well!
Needless to say that the almost 10 year gap between reading the book and re-reading this extended version was like reading the book for the first time again! I read The Remnant Chronicles and its spinoff so many years ago as well, so even all of that felt hazy. I just remembered that events largely took place in the kingdom of Morrighan and this is the story of who that kingdom was named after.
Morrighan was once just a young girl growing up with the tribe who was her family. Her mother died during childbirth and she never knew her father. Then one day she meets a boy, who she will later learn is Jafir and is a scavenger. Basically the lowest of the low when it came to people like them. He was apart of a group who stole from others because it was easier than doing something themselves. He was one of the best hunters among the group so he was often on his own bringing back food for his family. It is then that the two meet and have sporadic and spread out interactions. It's not until their later years where they would have near daily meetups.
The story is told through Jafir and Morrighan's point of view, but largely the story seems to belong to Morrighan. We learn that Morrighan has a particular gift, one that if it was largely known would have her coveted by all the wrong sorts of people, and naturally, Jafir's "family" is the wrong sort of people. If Morrighan hopes to have any kind of future with Jafir, she will have to learn how to trust him.
Even in its physical format, the book is still relatively short. While it comes in just over 200 pages, there's occasional illustrations throughout the book to take up some of that page count. There's gorgeous artwork throughout as well. I am not sure what the new bonus chapters are as they seem to be melded into the story and are not afterwards like traditional bonus content. So it's hard to say what's new and different about the story, although it did ring a few vague bells with me.
This was once again a fun little story that any fan of The Remnant Chronicles and the Dance of Thieves duology would enjoy! It's basically a new story set in the same world but predates The Remnant Chronicles itself. I continue to love the style of Mary E. Pearson's fantasy reads as they are always enjoyable stories without building an overly complicated magic system and having lovable characters. I enjoyed this little trip down memory lane once again!
Overall Rating 4.5/5 stars
