Sorcery of Thorns

Rogerson characterizes her protagonist, Elisabeth, as courageous, selfless, and resolute. The 16-year-old has blue eyes and hair that sticks “out in tangled chestnut-brown wisps” (26). Subverting normative physicality for romance heroines, Elisabeth is both taller and physically stronger than her male love interest. Rogerson establishes Elisabeth’s courage during many of the plot’s key moments, such as when she battles a Malefict by herself in Chapter 4 while thinking, “If she could distract it for long enough, and make enough of a commotion doing so, she might save the town” (36). Rogerson also highlights her selflessness throughout her character arc, culminating in one of the narrative’s pivotal scenes in which she sacrifices 10 years of her life to restore Nathaniel and Silas’s contract. The resolve with which she follows her conscience and convictions positions her to complete her character arc, Growing Into a Heroine, by the novel’s conclusion. Elisabeth remains determined to stop Ashcroft even after he tries to commit her to a psychiatric hospital, and Nathaniel urges her to return to her old life. Elisabeth wonders, “Was that a thing people did—just gave up? When there was so much in the world to love, to fight for? ‘I cannot,’ she said fiercely.