Charlotte Bell is the daughter of Lord Henry Bell, and as a result of an invisible yet deadly illness, she has been confined to the grounds of her family estate, Fayne. We meet her as an isolated yet spirited and curious child, one with unrestricted access to her father’s library, and freedom to roam the moorlands which her family’s estate encompasses. The pain and horror of the Abyssal spell distracted both of them from the momentary appearance of Myrin Darkdance, trapped in the blue flame. In another routine, "speaking in unison, they presented their view of how radio might have sounded in the sixteenth century.

With her kit she is potentially useful in Ice Golem, Fire Knight and Spider but I would suggest not spider because she uses her A2 ability (poison + attack debuff) her first turn and for auto you need someone that opens up with def down and weakness which Rhazin will do. But Fayne is elevated by an extra element in the intersex nature of the main narrator (which again takes them 100 pages to realise) which makes for a particularly interesting challenge to the agnatic primogeniture around which the plot revolves. I did not read the synopsis but I did read one review on GoodReads (by Carolyn Walsh) that motivated me even more.

The middle portions have Mae taking over, where her struggles to procreate and produce an heir for Henry are forefront. There’s plenty of revelations and plot twists along the way that I wouldn’t dream of spoiling here – it’s a joy to follow Charlotte as she learns. At first I assumed it was a visual bug that for some reason just repeated the damage numbers and CB passive on 2nd hit.

Charlotte addresses the reader in the opening chapters, inviting us to glimpse the circular arc of the story right at the outset – after all, the telling itself is a potent act in MacDonald’s works, including this one. She was variably at odds and friendly with the wizard Myrin Darkdance, something which confounded Fayne. In Edinburgh, her world opens as she encounters new people – some with the best of intentions, others more malign. I am by far an advanced player, but I would say she is worth the investment and books, bonus if you get the a2, a3 booked before you have to spend any on a1 of just using on CB.

Total team damage for me (unkillable NM auto = ~35-37M) seems to be the same between defense and support. And I was more than happy to let all the heartbreak and joy, cruelty and humour, the rage-inducing moments and sheer wildness and scope of Fayne consume me. Her mother died giving birth to Charlotte, and her older brother Charles, who would have been the heir to the estate and the title, died at the age of two. This novel is 700-plus pages, a lot of room to pack in a whole heaping helping of highly operatic doings.

Torn between England and Scotland, the grounds sit betwixt the two, belonging to both countries and neither.

from society due to an unnamed condition, Charlotte connects deeply with the moor, named “Fenn,” and attunes to Nature’s nuances and diverse designs. The additional poisons help fill the debuff bar where my FB cannot quite manage, but not so much that you cannot utilize all of the other debuffs she brings to the table. Ann-Marie MacDonald has such a talent for building atmosphere and setting a story in time and place—in