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2024: The GraphicAudio adaptation is fantastic! The same actor who is voicing Wit in Stormlight is the narrator here. He’s doing a great job and you‘ve got to love consistency like that.

2023: This was just as wonderful, delightful, and enchanting as I’d hoped; especially the humourous, whimsical tone and Hoid’s narrative voice were a joy. And the worldbuilding is just as amazing as ever: Picture a world with twelve moons, each releasing sand-like spores unto the land, creating twelve vast seas not of water but of alien dust - each a different color (the eponymous emerald being one of them). Each type of these spores explosively grows aethers (e.g. vines or crystals) when touched with water - the results of which range from “uncomfortable�� to “deadly�� considering “the number of wet things that leak from human bodies even if they’re healthy.�� Only salt and silver render the spores inert. And they are not just a cool visual; they naturally serve to further the story.

As for the plot, the novel starts as a love story but then quickly becomes an adventure - farm boy (or rather window washing girl) leaving home to go on a hero’s journey. With our heroine, Sanderson again creates a magical character you can only love; she is proactive, competent, both brave and pragmatic, and above all relatable.

”The girl had been given the unfortunate name of Glorf upon her birth (don’t judge; it was a family name), but her wild hair earned her the name everyone knew her by: Tress.��

Tress is very much in love with the Duke’s son, Charlie, who is not very dukely at all. Charlie actually sounds a bit like Sanderson himself with his passion for story telling and words.

”[The Iriali] supposedly had golden hair. Like yours, the color of sunlight.��
“My hair is not the color of sunlight, Charlie.��
“Your hair is the color of sunlight, if sunlight were brown,�� Charlie said. It might be said he had a way with words. In that his words often got away.

Charlie, however, is absent from the narrative, and Tress’s adventure lies in trying to save him from an evil sorceress. (She is, in a way, Buttercup who had gone searching for Westley.) Her journey is interwoven with a variety of characters, among them a cursed Hoid, a talking rat, a Cosmere creature, a horrible cook and also several insignificant people all referred to as Doug for simplicity’s sake.

With this “grown-up fairy tale��, Sanderson has once again created something extraordinary, something magical and enchanting and something very much unlike anything he has ever written before. And yes, Hoid’s story did feel like a “full-length version of something like 'Wandersail' or ‘The Dog and the Dragon’�� - just as he intended. And even if I saw a twist at the end coming, I loved every bit of it, from the very first page.

In terms of Cosmere implications, what can you expect? (Skip if you’d rather not know. Essentially, no previous knowledge is required for you to enjoy the story; however, you will appreciate it even more if you do know your Cosmere.)

**





🔹Hoid as both a storyteller and character, though his role within the narrative is initially hilariously complicated because of a curse (some knowledge of either Warbreaker, Elantris, both Mistborn eras, White Sand and especially Stormlight is helpful)
🔹Aethers, though a different type than shown in The Lost Metal and the non-canon Aether of Night (no previous knowledge required)
🔹Kandra (Mistborn knowledge is helpful)
🔹the Nalthian magic of awakening (no previous knowledge necessary)
🔹having read Secret History is a bonus







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March 5, 2022: The first five chapters of this (no-longer) secret project #1 are just enchanting. I loved that Hoid is telling this "slightly more fairy-tale-ish" story in his customary cheeky tone. I can just picture him telling Tress‘s story to others in the Cosmere. Did I mention I can’t wait to read this?

“She felt less a human being and more like a human who was just being.��

I’ve been beyond excited these past couple of days about Sanderson‘s announcement and these four new books! So happy to be a part of his Kickstarter campaign! (And spending waaaay too much money on it.) So much to look forward to, this year and the next...

PA: You can listen to Sanderson reading the first chapters here: