Hannah Kaner treads a new path in her latest fantasy novel that examines war, revenge and power
Katie FraserKatie Fraser is The Bookseller's deputy books editor and chair of the New Adult Book Prize. She has chaired events at the Edinburgh
...moreInspired by a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, A Snake Among Swans examines women’s agency when confronted with war and patriarchal power.
Katie Fraser is The Bookseller's deputy books editor and chair of the New Adult Book Prize. She has chaired events at the Edinburgh
...moreHannah Kaner’s A Snake Among Swans is set in Merogia, where a forest called the kithwood dominates the land. It is a place of old magic, where whispers run across the wind, enticing the unwitting deep into the forest’s belly. Here, magic thrashes against the chains of the Wing, the religion of the colonising Cynghal army and their leader, Liran.
In the novel, Tilde, a princess of Ardwen, has seen her land conquered and her family slaughtered by the Cynghal army. Desperate for vengeance, she sets upon a devastating path: to destroy the empire from within by marrying King Liran. “I wanted her to choose her fate,” explains Kaner over video call from her home in Edinburgh. “We have a lot of stories about women who are sold into marriage against their will, and they’re all very true, but she chooses this as a political match to exact revenge... It is labour. It is agonising. I think that is something that’s overridden in some fantasy and history – how horrible it is to marry, to be politically married or be married to someone you don’t love or feel attracted to. It’s not a love story.”
A Snake Among Swans is Kaner’s best yet. Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Wild Swans, which tells of a stepmother who ousts the sons of her husband – the king – by transforming them into swans, Kaner wanted to “tell the story from the [perspective of the] wicked witch”. She adds: “Why would a woman marry into a kingdom that has 13 sons, or seven depending on the version, and one daughter, and then decide to get rid of them? Why would she do that? What was the purpose? From that, I wanted to tell the story of someone who was under threat, who married into a new dynasty and wanted to take control.”
Now queen, Tilde must discover where the power truly lies. Liran is the face of imperial control, but what of the man, the high priest Dagobert, who lingers at his shoulder? Is he there to offer sage advice or advance the cause of the Wing, which filled Liran’s coffers for his crusade across the ocean? And then there are Liran’s six sons, borne of his previous wife, five of whom believe Tilde must be eliminated. They are an insidious, conniving brood inspired by the “dynastic squabbles” of the Plantagenet dynasty, a family that ruled England, and sometimes areas of France, for 331 years. Kaner also took her cue from the rise of the Roman Catholic Church after the fall of the Roman Empire in 476AD when creating the Wing and its involvement in Liran’s rule. The Church, explains Kaner, “embedded itself with secular power” and the two – religion and secularism – became a “commanding force in early medieval Europe”. She also cites the appointment of Charlemagne as emperor by Pope Leo III, the first emperor to rule Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire. However, he was “not actually the inheritor”, says Kaner. The Church refused to recognise Empress Irene of the Byzantine Empire as the legitimate ruler, giving Charlemagne oversight over her territory.
“The way that power is balanced and can turn on a pin is so evident in medieval history,” says Kaner. This is evident, too, in A Snake Among Swans. Liran’s court is on the brink of a succession war. His sons are becoming bolder, openly questioning his authority, and alliances are shifting. Nothing is off limits in these power games, and Tilde must work out how much of herself she is willing to give to secure her kingdom’s future.
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There is, however, an anomaly at court: Elise, one of Liran’s two surviving daughters. Elise is an ardent devotee of the Wing, following its strict dictums on womanhood to the complete suppression of her identity. Kaner unravels her character in alternating chapters with Tilde’s, but with one difference. Elise’s chapters are written in the third person because “she sees herself as passive in in her own life. She exists and sees herself as existing in service to others, so I don’t think she worked as an ‘I’ because it placed her in a position of empowerment that she didn’t have”. Tilde is the opposite – she is unafraid to use her voice – and ignites something long buried within Elise. But when events come to a head, will Elise side with her family or Tilde?
A Snake Among Swans follows from the Fallen Gods trilogy, which included Kaner’s British Book Award shortlisted debut Godkiller, and is much darker than its predecessors. It was initially unclear to Kaner whether this shift was the correct move: “This world is much closer to our own history and so bringing that out and constantly questioning: ‘Am I doing the right thing by writing a story of oppression, pain and war in this world that’s full of oppression, pain and war?’ Where Godkiller was such an escape, this is more delving into the way people in power relate to each other.”
The novel offers an acute examination of how war and its aftermath can disenfranchise and violate women. By marrying Liran, Tilde knows that she will be forced into his bed, the bed of her oppressor. These passages are among the novel’s most affecting. Kaner does not describe the assault on the page, instead confronting the reader with the consequences. “It seemed an atrocity that there could be such simple, familiar kindnesses when my body had been ransacked of familiarity. Its flesh hung on me still, my soul somewhere in a chasm that had opened within,” writes Kaner. It is impactful and sensitively handled. “Tilde has to push her experience to a place where she doesn’t have to look at it directly,” says Kaner. “I and so many others have had to deal with acts of violence or violation... There’s no perfect way to deal with it, but because there is no resolution, no formula, it can feel like something that is almost brushed over in its atrocity when we write about it.”
In a social media post, Kaner described the writing process as “torture and a lifeline”. When I ask what she meant by this, she explains: “There were a lot of things going on in my life that made it harder. Family deaths, illness and moving country. Everything I knew was shifting beneath me, and that was an interesting thing to bring to the page. Everything that Tilde knows is shifting beneath her, but that made it very hard to write. It was hard to write because I was talking about assault and pain and I had to write a character who was disempowered when my previous characters all have agency and power in their world.”
A sophisticated tale of war, deadly courtly politics, magic and religion, A Snake Among Swans will grab you and refuse to let go. Kaner has created a blazing new protagonist in Tilde and a compelling fantasy world. This is a thrilling beginning to what promises to be a fantastic trilogy in the vein of George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire.
Metadata
Imprint HarperVoyager
Publication 30th July 2026
Formats HB (9780008727291, £20); EB (9780008727314, £11.99)
Rights sold Three territories, including the US (HarperVoyager US)
Editor Charlotte Trumble
Agent Juliet Mushens, Mushens Entertainment
