The Wilful Princess and the Piebald Prince

by Robin Hobb

[Mercy]

I read this novella a few months ago and this won't surprise you guys but I absolutely loved it. This story takes place many years before the main events in Assassin's Apprentice, it's written as a sort of account by a woman called Felicity who with her son decided to write down the truth about the Piebald Prince. I won't go into much details as it is a short story but I recommend reading it before Tawny Man and I wish I had done that because that way some things that happened in Fool's Errand would've been clearer for me.

Through the Farseer trilogy we learn how despised the Wit is so in this novella we discover how this came to be and it was so sad and it made me angry to read the truth about how a wonderful magic was suddenly loathed. The story is sad and even though I knew things would end badly I found myself wishing otherwise because Hobb once again made me cry and care deeply about the characters. My absolute favourite thing was Hobb's prose, I was so immersed in the story and felt sad about it ending but the characters were also great. Princess Caution and Felicity were my favourites, they were totally opposites, whilst Caution wasn't cautious at all, Felicity was more thoughtful and I loved how they keep going with life without needing a man by their side, contrary to what everyone wanted them to do.

The Wilful Princess and the Piebald Prince is a beautiful written story, it was heartbreaking but the ending compensates the bitterness of what happened and I cannot praise Robin Hobb enough because both her prose and imagination shine in those pages.