Book Review: The Mercy Makers by Tessa Gratton

A bold, lush fantasy novel that is more a fever dream than a grounded reality, and makes it work

The Mercy Makers is the story of Iriset me Isidor. She is the daughter of the Little Cat, Isidor, a notorious criminal. She is a demure woman who isn’t all that involved in her father’s criminal activities. She is the epitome of the stereotype of the Mobster’s daughter not truly involved with her father’s criminal empire. Small, demure, quiet. Harmless.

However, Iriset is also secretly Silk. Silk can do magic and change things, and even people. She’s a prodigy and determined to explore and build her talents, even if those lean into or cross over into the heretical. She boldly walked into the Little Cat’s court in disguise and carved a place for herself to work on her designs on behalf of the Little Cat. And her masks and skills have helped the Little Cat expand his reach and power... and to eventually be noticed by the Empire.

So, when the Little Cat is captured, so is Iriset, but as Iriset, and not Silk. Iriset is eventually brought to the palace to be a handmaiden of the sister of the Emperor. Her father is still imprisoned, due to die. And no one, as far as Iriset can tell, knows that she is Silk. And of course a plan starts to hatch to use her skills to save her father. Iriset may be a handmaiden of the Emperor’s sister, but it will take her prodigal abilities as Silk if she is to save her father. Or herself.

The Mercy Makers tells Iriset/Silk’s story, from a tight third-person point of view.

I could spend the entirety of this review discussing the extremely byzantine plot of the novel. What I described brings us to the quarter turn of the novel. It is the living embodiment of the meme “And then the plot really got going.” And this happens several times in the book, when Gratton decides that the plot, always twisting and interesting, needs yet another kick. The novel as a result never flags. It has moments of quiet, of grace and beauty, but always holds the reader’s attention.

So to speak in general terms, Iriset falls deeper and deeper into the machinations and the plotting of what is ostensibly supposed to be the epitome of order and power.

And she is aware and comments on this dichotomy (especially since the Empire has apparently taken the dangerous Silk into its heart). This is an empire, and we will get into that, so the palace is supposed to be the center of order and regularity. What Iriset finds is that the palace may ostensibly be that center, but in actuality it is anything but orderly. And of course she must and will pull on those threads... and be pulled on in turn.

But there is a lot more going on to discuss, and a lot of the plot is something I’d rather have readers discover for themselves. There is a cliche or at least a guideline that sex scenes should build and develop character and plot in a SFF story. It should not be “just about the sex.” I think this is a guideline that goes back to the earlier days of SFF, which were much less interested in depicting sexual relations (and also in general the changes in literature in general). But even then, in straight up fantasy I’ve read, there is not a lot of sex that doesn’t keep at least some veils, or fade to black.

Gratton’s work is of a different caliber altogether. There is a lot of sex in the book, and explicit at that. Like in the movie Sinners, the main character does, in fact, like to have sex.¹ The main character has sex with both men and women in the course of the novel. This is perhaps the most explicit fantasy book I’ve read, and sex is portrayed in a positive light throughout the book.

And it turns out to be extremely important, plot- and characterwise (which means that skipping the scenes is a fraught activity if you don’t like explicit sex scenes). The sexual situations build the character of Iriset, and those she has sex with impinge on the plot as well as develop Iriset as a character.

And even outside of the explicit sex scenes, the book is, in a word, *charged*. For an empire and a court developed on Order, there is a heck of a lot of undercurrents going on. That runs through the entire book, and again, goes straight to character and the plot. For, you see, as much as Iriset is devoted to her plan to save her father, she winds up getting entangled, not only in the schemes of others in the courts, but emotionally as well. That entanglement complicates the plot deliciously.

So yes, in all the sex, and the complicated plot, this is a lush and rich novel, full of details, both in setting scenes and in worldbuilding. This is an intensely detailed world, on all the senses. We are engaged in how this world feels, from food and drink to decor, fashion, and setting details. The palace rooms, gardens, the cityscape all come to life. And it is a world that is both familiar and yet unearthly, and Gratton takes delight in showing it to us. This is a fantasy ’verse where a moon is perpetually bound above the caldera where the city lies. As a result, eclipses are predictable, regular, and tie into the religious beliefs, outlook, and calendar of the Empire. It’s often giddying to read passages, knowing in the back of your mind even when a conversation is relatively mundane and regular, that this very different and unique world is right outside the door—or right over their heads. It is a fever dream, or perhaps a lucid dream, of a reality for the reader to be immersed in.

And the novel has a lot to say about empire, and the whole imperial project. The Emperor is trying something new with marrying a powerful noble via alliance rather than outright trying to conquer her nation. The change in the scope and methods of the imperial project are not universally welcomed. And of course the novel has a lot to say about resisting imperial authority, the limits and problems of power, and how it influences and affects those who wield it. Iriset goes from being the daughter of a criminal mastermind resisting that power to being on the inside seeing it wielded. The internal fundamental contradictions of empire are laid bare in her story.

As a result, a lot of books and properties came to mind as touchstones for me as I read. The end of the arc has an advertisement for Antonia Hodgson’s The Raven Scholar, and that book really fits in well with this one on a lot of levels, and readers who enjoy one are going to, I think, have a likely chance of enjoying the other. I was also reminded of the roleplaying world of Glorantha, which has a moon hanging in one fixed place in the sky and unusual rituals with supernatural beings as part of the wonder of the extraordinary inside of the everyday. There are plenty of deadly courts in fantasy and I could list dozens. Most recently, Birth of a Dynasty: A Novel by Chinaza Bado once we get to the royal court, certainly has this in spades. The world of Ai Jiang’s A Palace Near the Wind is even wilder and stranger than this one, but the intrigues of its own court came to mind, especially with someone falling into a court with an agenda of her own that is thwarted by events and movements of the heart.

Given that this is a society obsessed with masks, my mind went to Jack Vance’s The Moon Moth. And of course, given Iriset is really Silk but pretends to be a hapless noble,² there is a lot of Zorro/Scarlet Pimpernel in her. The masks and the whole double life of Iriset had as Silk (and has, as she tries to cobble together things in the court) speak a lot to the novel’s theme of identity and what identity we show to others, and to ourselves. Masks and reflections, images from within and without—Gratton definitely works these themes and ideas fruitfully in Iriset’s story.

The novel ends on a phase transition, as we start to find out what is really going on and what the real central conflict of the novel is. In that way, it feels a bit like Annabeth Campbell’s The Outcast Mage, and like discussions of that book, I will avoid any revelations on that score. It does promise that the second novel is going to be rather different from the first, and given the change in the political and social landscape at the end of the novel, I am extremely intrigued to see where Gratton’s story goes next. She surprised me several times in this novel, and I very invested in continuing this ’verse.

Highlights:

• Sex-positive, lots of graphic sex that builds both character and plot. If that turns you off, this novel may not be for you.
• Richly detailed, lush, immersive world.
• An extremely interesting, twisty plot.
• Strong and fascinating character beats and developments in character.

Reference: Gratton, Tessa. The Mercy Makers [Orbit, 2025].

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I'm just this guy, you know? @princejvstin

¹ The movie Sinners, unlike a lot of contemporary movies, does unapologetically have multiple characters of various types have sex on screen and those people be shown to enjoy it.

² Hapless noble, not hapless woman. To be clear, there are a lot of women in power and authority in this empire; it is extremely egalitarian in that regard. Amaranth, the Emperor’s Sister, is possibly the second most powerful person in the court and the empire, but the challenger to that position is a spoiler.

6 Books with Tessa Gratton

Tessa Gratton is the author of adult SFF, The Queens of Innis Lear and Lady Hotspur from Tor Books, as well as several YA series and short stories which have been translated into twenty-two languages. Her most recent YA titles are the original fairy tales Strange Grace and Night Shine from McElderry Books. Though she has lived all over the world, she currently resides alongside the Kansas prairie with her wife. Visit her at tessagratton.com.

Today she tells us about her Six Books:

1. What book are you currently reading?

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan. It's a gorgeous, sharp fantasy genderbent AU about the rise of the first Ming emperor. The book alternates between the stories of a person who steals her brother’s destined greatness and uses gender like a superpower to not only survive and defeat whole armies and plot coups and fall in love, and a very angry eunuch who’s the general of the Mongol army and has been on a slow-burn revenge quest against the Mongols for twenty years. Their stories intertwine violently and oof I’m just loving it. 

2. What upcoming book are really excited about?

Wayward Witch by Zoraida Córdova. It’s the third book in her Brooklyn Brujas trilogy and follows the youngest of the Mortiz sisters to a fairy island hidden in the Caribbean Sea. I beta read an early version, but the ending is totally different now, and I am excited and Very Worried about my emotions. Zoraida also just published a new high fantasy book called Incendiary in May and it’s one of my favorite 2020 reads so far. 

3. Is there a book you’re currently itching to read again?

The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord. This is my favorite book of the last decade—it’s so smart about people, about emotions and community and diaspora, very weird in some ways, but also deeply comforting, and about finding and creating home. I’ve been rereading it about once a year, usually in the dark of winter, but this year I’d lent it to my sister-in-law and so kept putting it off, even though I have it in other formats, too. I finally got it back in hand so it’s sitting next to me on my desk, waiting for that moment I give in and sink back into it. 

4. How about a book you’ve changed your mind about—either positively or negatively?

OK when I was a youth I refused to read Tess of the D’Urbervilles because there can be no Tess other than me. I am the only one allowed, and I couldn’t imagine reading a book with a character with my name. I avoided reading Tess even though it was on my senior AP summer reading list, and got permission to read a different Hardy instead. I picked Return of the Native and I loved it so much I read Tess of the D’Urbervilles on a whim and was so caught up I got into a huge fight with my entire AP class about the Very Nice Guy Angel Clare. Did you know Tess murders her rapist and dramatically hides from the police at STONEHENGE??? Where she spreads herself on what was believed to be a sacrificial altar? The book is depressing and melodramatic and highlights a lot of gender and class, ah, issues, but I couldn’t deny I was obsessed. 

5. What’s one book, which you read as a child or young adult, that has had a lasting influence on your writing?

There are so many I can trace parts of my writing to, but for a singular example I have to say Beauty by Robin McKinley. It was the first adult fantasy book I found—wandering away from the tiny shelf of Christopher Pike and Nancy Drew in my neighborhood bookstore into the section with the kind of books my mom read with spaceships and dragons on the covers. I was compelled by the cover, I must admit, an oddly colored, compelling painting of a woman surrounded by roses. The moment I identified it as a Beauty and the Beast retelling it had to be mine. I read it a hundred times I’m sure before I was fifteen, and even made a tape-recording of myself reading it so I could listen to my DIY audiobook while I rode my bike. I had the first ten pages memorized word-for-word. I reach again and again in my own work for the liminal space that book occupied to me: both mundane and magical, full of small moments that illuminated great truths about the characters and the world, filling me with longing for things I couldn’t quite name. I’m still trying to name them through my writing. And the looping, lovely narrative style appears again and again in my own first drafts, a fairy tale voice I aspire to constantly. 

6. And speaking of that, what’s your latest book, and why is it awesome?

My new book is Night Shine, a dark, queer Howl’s Moving Castle, about an orphan called Nothing who goes on a quest with a beleaguered body-guard to rescue a prince kidnapped by the Sorceress Who Eats Girls. It’s awesome because three of the four main characters are based on my favorite villain love interest tropes: seductive, maybe-evil sorcerer, wicked prince, and demon in disguise, while the fourth MC is the loyal bodyguard love interest trope. Plus I made everybody totally queer and genderqueer. 

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POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? 
@princejvstin.

Microreview [Book]: Lady Hotspur by Tessa Gratton

A heartache-heavy Shakespearean rework that misses the energy of its progenitor

Cover art Larry Rostant; design by Jamie Stafford-Hill

I haven't engaged much with Shakespeare's history plays before last year, but that changed over the course of 2019 as I was able to take advantage of the Globe Theatre's entire "double Henriad" run: from Richard II to Richard III, with 3-6 Henries in the middle depending on whether you count by monarch or by play*. After seeing Richard II in a winter "standalone" production with all women of colour actors (Imperial Radch audiobook narrator Adjoa Andoh played Richard II! That's right, King Breq!), Henry IV was my reintroduction to the company's outdoor theatre, complete with £5 standing tickets, stylish branded ponchos, and - for the second two plays - a summer cold so bad it was all I could do to lean against the stage for 6 hours. All of that just added to the energy of a diversely cast ensemble production, complete with women playing Prince Hal, Hotspur, and Falstaff. My mind, therefore, already had very clear casting for Lady Hostpur's reimagining of Henry IV and was very ready to see how an explicitly female, romantic take on the characters would unfold.

Lady Hotspur opens at a moment covered in the Shakespeare originals by the close of Richard II. Hal has been raised in court as part of the retinue of King Rossavos, who banished her mother ten years ago and has since been dragging the Kingdom of Aremoria further into debt and ruin. When Mum (also known as Celada) returns to claim not just her lands but the throne itself, she makes short work of the King and wastes no time in re-securing her position, despite some lingering Hal finds herself thrown into life as the Crown Prince, while her friend and the former heir Banna Mora falls from favour. Hal's only consolation is her love affair with Hotspur, a noble soldier whose radiance and temper are renowned. Hotspur, however, had her own loyalties to her land and friends, and things come to a head when Mora is captured by neighbouring Innis Lear which readers of Gratton's previous book will probably be very familiar with. For everyone else, myself included, Innis Lear ends up as sort of a cross between Fairyland and Wales, and whose presence causes the increasing distance between the influence text and Lady Hotspur's reimagining. Celada's court and Hal's circle end up divided over Celada's refusal to pay a ransom for her return, separating Hal and Hotspur and ending their relationship but not their mutual attraction. Mora instead entrenches herself in Innis Lear, picking up a magical husband and some prophecies, and the stage is set for some epic politics and warfare.

Except, this is Henry IV Part 1, so the extent to which we get involved in heavy politics is deeply dependent on how Prince Hal is feeling - and, it turns out, she's chafing under her mother's rule, and particularly the expectation that she marry a man for childbearing purposes (Lady Hotspur could be clearer on queer acceptance in the various lands, but the dominant belief in Aremoria appears to be that Hal and Hotspur's relationship is not taboo but should not be flaunted, especially at the expense of political childbearing alliances, whereas Innis Lear appears to be more fluid with things). With the help of Lady Ianta Oldcastle (hey, I understood that reference!) Hal sets up a shadow Court of Rogues in which she can drink and womanise to her heart's content, and generally avoid responsibilities. In the Shakespearean version, Hal's adventures with Falstaff, Poins et al. are treated as fairly uncomplicated, if sometimes quite vindictive and unpleasant, fun; the conflict in the Prince's character only really shows up in scenes with the King, where the weight of expectations is most clearly set out. Because Hal is a viewpoint character for her scenes in Lady Hotspur, however, everything including the Court of Rogues takes on a more morose cast, as she laments the loss of Hotspur and the wider upheaval which her new position has brought, including her inability to continue a friendship with Banna Mora and the expectations her mother has put on her for the future of the Kingdom. Coupled with Ianta Oldcastle's far more gloomy cast as a character who lost her position as founder of the Lady Knights under the previous King and has fallen into alcoholism as a result, there's an air of desperation and falseness about Hal's rebellion which makes it distinctly less enjoyable to witness. And that's not a mood constrained to Hal: Hotspur divides her time between worrying about the warlike machinations of her Aunt and Mother, worrying and being heartbroken over Hal and her unwillingness to step up, and worrying about Banna Mora. And despite their potential to shake things up - and the apparent authorial intent to have it appear as a more positive political space -the scenes and characters in Innis Lear sometimes get lost in slow melancholy of the book, especially with the whole "weight of ancient prophecies and bloodlines" thing hanging over everyone. Basically, this is a long, slow, sad, meditative book, and it's not afraid to make its audience wait multiple chapters between reasons to root for any of its characters.

The problem is, with all this meditative heartbreak, it becomes difficult for Gratton to truly convey the potential dynamism of the three women at Lady Hotspur's heart, despite the textual insistence that they are all something special. This is especially an issue for Hotspur, who we are told burns as bright as the sun, but all we ever really see of her is her constant deflated disappointment in Hal's behaviour and her conflicted, awkward feelings about the slow political and romantic situations she spends 95% of the book responding to. Hal and Banna Mora's respective positions and reputations are generally pretty well-deserved, but play out in a way which really stretches audience sympathy for them both in different ways, and ultimately neither Hal's redemption or Mora's arc into magical uniter of both countries really brought me around to them. The only character who really brings a genuine ray of sunshine into proceedings is Echarmet of Kurake Queen, a scion of one of Celeda's foreign allies (from a matriarchal society which I would definitely read about if the opportunity arose) and potential political match for Hal: and yes, I'm well aware of the irony of picking out one of the very few male characters in Lady Hotspur as a highlight, but Charm is great and deserves justice and nice things forever, OK? In fairness, part of Charm's, uh, charm, is his bringing a non-heteropatriarchal take into Aremoria's court, and essentially becoming one of Hal's lifelines from a direction that she's not expecting, and that's one of the elements that brings things to a still-slow but eventually pretty satisfying (and unexpected!) conclusion.

Ultimately, I suspect my main problem with much of Lady Hotspur is that it sits in the uncanny valley between the production I've watched and internalised as "Henry IV", and a completely standalone text. There's nothing at all wrong with slow, meditative queer medieval politics books, but if you are going to transform your title character from the fast-talking, fast-acting centre of a rebellion, who would literally move entire rivers for the sake of their own power and sense of what is right, into a woman whose only real character decisions are deciding whether or not to be with her feckless true love in the hope of changing her, and subsequently whether to stand behind another character (incidentally, I had to look up who Banna Mora's source character was - either Edmund Mortimer was cut from the version of the play that I watched, or just not interesting enough to remember) is one that's inevitably going to create a lot of "wait, what, why?" over those decisions. I'm not sure if this problem would be solved by lack of familiarity with the play, as well, as the disconnect between what we're shown and what we're told about Hotspur would still be there within the text itself. What I'm left with is something I really wish I'd enjoyed more than I did - a book that took a lot of work for a frankly very modest payoff. I'm still intrigued by what Gratton does next (especially if it involves some of Echarmet's Mothers) but, alas, Lady Hotspur isn't quite the knockout I'd hoped.

*If you're counting by monarch, there are also two uncredited Edwards in there. History is fun!

The Math
Baseline Score: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 It's genderbent queer Shakespeare, and we need more of this sort of thing forever

Penalties: -1 Struggles to portray the dynamism of its leads over their slow heartbreak; -1 I would have preferred a commitment either to being very different or more similar to the source text

Nerd Coefficient: 6/10 "still enjoyable, but the flaws are hard to ignore". Read about our scoring system here.

Posted by: Adri, Nerds of a Feather co-editor, is a semi-aquatic migratory mammal most often found in the UK. She has many opinions about SFF books, and is also partial to gaming, baking, interacting with dogs, and Asian-style karaoke. Find her on Twitter at @adrijjy.

Reference: Gratton, Tessa. Lady Hotspur [Tor Books, 2020]