A rich and enchanting story of the turbulent and beautiful ways we come together
—Amanda Khong, Bookish Brews
Bookish Brews Snapshot
This Fierce Blood by Malia Márquez
Wilhelmina Sylte starts her life as a settler and finds herself inexplicably drawn to mountain lions on her property. Throughout the generations, the women in her family find their lives to be inextricably intertwined with the inexplicable.
📖 Couldn’t Put It Down 😭 Emotional 🌳 Family Focused 🔮 Magical Realism
- Genre: Literary Fiction
Book Review
Beautiful, multigenerational, magical, emotional, riveting, compelling, subtle
This Fierce Blood is an absolutely beautiful book. From the stunning cover to the writing, to the story, this book had me enchanted from the very start. The pacing, the beauty, the subtle magic, and the thoughtful internal conflict were so gripping that I found myself unable to put it down. This Fierce Blood surprised me in ways that I didn’t anticipate. It woke my sense of wonder and opened my heart to generations of women in the Sylte family.
Wilhelmina Sylte is a settler starting her life with her immigrant husband when she becomes inexplicably drawn to mountain lions around their property. Two generations later, Josepa is accused of witchcraft in her village for using healing practices passed down from her Native mother. Another generation past, Magdalena inherits her great-grandmother Wilhelmina’s farm and turns it into a summer science camp for teens. As summer progresses Magda finds the lines between science and myth begin to blur in her life.
This Fierce Blood gives us a unique and beautiful look into the joining of cultures in the American Southwest. It cleverly highlights how traditions can clash and come together as one all at the same time. Through three different generations of women, we see both discordance and weaving of culture and how each of these helps our cultures grow. Márquez does a wonderful job of showing the deep complexities that come with growing up in a multicultural and multiracial home. Being multiracial is so often being pushed and pulled from one piece of yourself to another but never fitting quite right anywhere. It’s being drawn in and rejected from every side and not knowing how to identify when you identify with all sides but none of them at the same time. The portrayal of this cultural family growth is nothing short of stunning.
Márquez reminds us how important it is to keep magic alive in our lives. The beauty of this story is the subtlety of fantastical things. the way that nothing specifically is too unbelievable, but stacked together it is clear that something extraordinary is happening here. Just magic enough for us to believe in something that is inexplicable. It is a beautiful reminder that magic exists in our everyday lives if only you pay attention to see it. Western thought often upholds science as their main ideology and dislike anything that cannot be fully explained through science and data. When we tell stories like this we’re fighting in a way that western powers often will never understand. Believing in magic is fighting back.
This Fierce Blood is compelling and beautiful. It is a multigenerational saga that captures the beauty, difficulty, and importance of merging and growing cultures. It clashes and it mends relationships across generations and cultures in a thoughtful and lovely way. It’s absolutely stunning.
Book Club Questions
- What are some examples from the book about how conflict arises with the blending of cultures? What are some examples of the beauty of this integration? Discuss how Márquez writing changes throughout the generations.
- Could you feel the writing style growing into a more contemporary spirit as the plot became more contemporary? How was Márquez able to accomplish this? What strategies and tricks did you notice?
- How is this book reflective of the unique landscape in the American Southwest? How does this book contrast with other stories of the American Southwest that you’ve read or are familiar with?
- What difficulties do you notice for families blending cultures? Did the experience of the multiracial characters surprise you in any way? Why or why not? Are you familiar with multiracial or multicultural experiences?
