My sincere thanks to Electric Monkey Books for gifting me an ARC of The Wicked Lies of Harbrenfell via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. It felt less like receiving a book and more like a key to a secret, rain-wet door, opening the door into a world of shadowy forests, silvery skies, and stories that will linger in my heart long after I read the last page.
UNWAITH AR Y TRO (Once Upon a Time)
Some stories don’t just invite you to participate; They call to you, like the distant echo of a harp on misty hills, like the whisper of the wind through gorse and heather. “The Evil Lie of Halbrenfeld” is such a story. It’s a dark, sparkling, deeply Welsh romance that slips under your skin like the shadow of a nearly forgotten lullaby, blending the dangerous beauty of Pan’s Labyrinth, the whimsy and world of Jim Henson’s Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, the yearning of Bridge to Terabithia, the wonder of Spider-Man Chronicles and the decadence of Peter Pan, but threaded through the mythology of Heart, Sheila and Cymru.
From the first page, The Wicked Lies of Habrun Fell had me completely spellbound, with Anna Fittini’s words weaving an eerie, otherworldly atmosphere that seemed to hover over my shoulders like mist. Every thread sparkles with magic, but it’s never a safe spell; the danger gleams beneath the surface, daring you to get closer. As I read, I felt a familiar pull in my chest, Shiras, a longing for loved ones long gone and for the world hidden in our hills and streams. This book is equally steeped in soul-deep Welsh folklore, filled with whimsical, wild, and sometimes terrifying creatures born from the ancient beliefs of my people, such as Mari Lwyd, Cyhyraeth, Ceffyl Dŵr, and the Pwca. Yet amid the danger, there is also beauty, warmth, and a pounding heartbeat, a reminder that even the darkest stories can bring light.
Fittney’s debut novel, set in a small mining village in the 1800s, is full of Welsh grit and poetry: the coal dust clinging to the skin, the church bells ringing, the dogged survival of a people whose land and language (iaith y nefoedd, “the language of heaven”) have been stolen and suppressed but still endure. Sabrina Parry, our prickly and imperfect heroine, learns to survive with sharp words and an even sharper wit. Her sister Ceridwen, gentle and romantic with a heart too soft for this world, disappeared into the gwyll (twilight) of the nearby woods, leaving behind an iron ring. To save her, Sabrina must enter Eu Gwald, the dangerous kingdom of Tylwyth Teg. Here, Fittini gives us a fairy tale as it should be: beautiful yet decaying, intoxicating yet dangerous. This isn’t softened, modern Fae; These were the tricksters in old stories, the kind my tadku used to whisper about before going to bed. The ones you would leave milk for…and pray never to meet. At the Habrun Circus, the moonlight hides teeth and the shackles of bargaining are from which no mortal can escape.
I shed tears, real, shameless tears, because this world and these characters felt like a suffocation to me, a feeling that keeps you thinking about them long after you close the book. Sabrina Parry made her way into my heart with the grace of a storm hitting the shore. She’s everything you wouldn’t imagine a fantasy heroine to be, and yet somehow, so much more: malicious, unflinchingly honest in her lies, a troublemaker who deceives, angers, and gleefully upends lives when it suits her. She looked at the neat path that fate had drawn for her, and she might strike first at those who dared suggest she take it. Despite this, she is still loving and fiercely loyal, and will knock you unconscious or chop your fingers off if it means protecting someone she cares about. Fitney writes about her with the same rough, beating heart as the March sisters in “Little Women,” and her family—her dad, her sister Ceridwin, her grandma—feel as if they’ve stepped straight out of a literary classic and into this wild elven world. There’s a hint of Alice in Wonderland madness here too, all woven together with shades of Tim Burton-esque in a way that’s both unsettling and completely irresistible.
Neirin Oh, Neirin, the irritating magnetic elf prince who intruded on Sabrina’s mission and intruded on my mind more than I’d like to admit. He, like David Bowie’s Jareth, is cut from stardust and vice, full of vanity and glib charm, both blindingly clever and utterly stupid. His name felt too noble for a man so self-absorbed, so pretentious, so obsessed with humanity, yet so dangerously unpredictable. His brown eyes looked a little glossy in the sunlight, and his eyelashes cast spider-legged shadows on his cheeks. His wavy black hair was streaked with silver and sparkled like someone had dipped a brush in the moonlight, and he wore black velvet sewn with silver thread, embroidered with constellations, stars, moons, and planets, just as he wore the night sky. Fitney imbues him with an edginess that reminded me of Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In fact, the entire court of Elleron is filled with a Shakespearean mixture of mischief, beauty, and potential danger. Naylin is both a lovable thief and a mischievous con man, and the slow-burning tension between him and Sabrina is a quiet thread woven into a larger tapestry, all the more intoxicating for its restraint. Betrayal twists in the dark, their banter turns from irritating to something more sinister, and I find my heart racing every time they share this page.
The LGBTQ+ imagery in The Wicked Lies of Harbrun Fell is seamlessly woven into the fabric of the story, like the silver threads in Neirin’s velvet coat, natural, unpretentious, and all the more beautiful for it. Fittini does not see queerness as a spectacle or a side note; It’s here, alive and shameless, like any world worth escaping from. Among the Tyrwisteggs and all their cunning kindred, the sea elves glided between sea and shore, and the mermaids, the mogans, whose songs echoed in the waves, filled with love and longing for more than one heart. In a story deeply rooted in Welsh folklore and history, it feels like a quiet, defiant act of reclamation, reminding us that our stories, like our people, have always been more diverse, more complex, more wondrous than the narrow paths history has tried to constrain them.
Thematically, Fittini captures something I’ve rarely captured so deftly in fantasy: the bittersweet pain of growing up, leaving home, coming back to find it changed, and knowing that you’ve been changed too. She expresses grief with a quiet grace: grief for the dead, for the selves we leave behind, but also for the stories and traditions lost under the weight of colonization. As a Welsh reader, I was heartbroken by her tribute to mining communities, their sacrifices, their stolen labour, their resilience, and the way she refused to erase the edges of Welsh identity.
For me, The Wicked Lies of Harbrenfell is like a love letter to Wales, a celebration of everything that is my homeland. Too often, romance novels draw on Welsh mythology and landscape without acknowledging, let alone questioning, the roots of their inspiration. But Fitney didn’t just nod to Wales; She values it, respects it, and breathes life into its heart. To the reader, the merciless rain wets the slate roofs, the forest seems to stretch forever into the mist, and the ancient stone castle rises from the mountains like something out of a dream. This is a Wales that is both real and mysterious, where the grit of the coal seams juxtaposes with flickering elfin lights, and where every page is steeped in anguish and longing for home.
These pages are filled with a deep, untranslatable longing for a place, a time, and a feeling that can never be fully recaptured. However, there is hope. Hope rests in the intense and tumultuous love between the sisters. Hopefully you can survive even if you don’t win by bargaining with the faeries. Hopefully the story itself will live on. Fittini’s prose is rich without being excessive, imbued with the rhythms of a fireside folktale. She balances whimsy with danger, tenderness with sharp teeth. The ending is sure to be bittersweet, leaving you breathless, a little bruised, and eager to walk the dark groves of Ugvald again.
Some books you will remember the plots after reading them, and some books will leave you with words that are deeply rooted in your bones. The Wicked Lies of Halbrenfeld gave me more than one line like this, which is like a talisman you carry around with you. “Even if you’re my age, if you’re not happy, you haven’t reached the end yet.” It’s a quiet, provocative reminder that life is not a straight path to some fixed point, and that no matter your age, that happiness is worth chasing until your last breath. “People love us for our efforts” speaks to my bones; we are valued not just for succeeding, but for trying, striving and pushing beyond our limits. Fitney’s reflection that “our lives are small…a speck of dust on an old coat, or a ephemera that began on the first and only day, but out of which a thousand stories are born” is both humbling and uplifting, a reminder that even the smallest being can become a universe. The idea that we are all being exploited by a big house somewhere is a bitter truth cloaked in whimsy, suggesting that invisible forces, whether political, economic or nefarious, shape our lives without our consent. And underneath it all is this warning: “All the best lies spring from the seeds of truth.” It’s a lesson in the insight that what feels true may just be bait, and that when you have less, what you hold, love, trust, and belong to becomes more important. These quotes not only shaped my reading experience; They shaped me.
For me, The Wicked Lies of Halbrenfell was like finding my way into the world I dreamed of as a child, listening to my grandfather speak about the world of Tylwyth Tighe that I thought I no longer needed, but they were just sleeping. This book awakened them and gave me my sight, and for that, I’m grateful.
The Wicked Lies of Harbrun Fell will be released on August 28, 2025, and I wholeheartedly recommend that you get swept up in it the moment it arrives. This is a story of rain and starlight, silas and heartbreak, cruel fae dealings and the kind of love that is fierce, chaotic, unyielding and can outwit even the oldest magic. It’s a story you get lost in and carry with you, like a secret spell tucked away in your pocket, long after you’ve left the woods.
It’s a riveting debut—dark as slate, bright as starlight, and full of Silas.
