Wicked Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Wicked Wiki
6F10A5EE-7E77-4593-87FC-BE82D2388715

The Brides of Maracoor is the first novel in Another Day, a three-volume series spun off the iconic Wicked Years from multimillion-copy bestselling author Gregory Maguire, featuring Elphaba’s granddaughter, the green-skinned Rain. The novel serves as a spin-off/sequel to Out of Oz.

It was released on October 12, 2021.

The Brides of Maracoor is followed by The Oracle of Maracoor, volume II of Another Day.

Plot[]

The Brides of Maracoor finds Elphaba’s granddaughter, Rain, washing ashore on a foreign island: the island of Maracoor Spot. Comatose and suffering from amnesia from crashing into the sea, Rain is taken in by a community of seven single women (Brides) committed to obscure devotional practices; Every morning they cut their feet and let the salt water sting, all while twisting kelp into the nets that apparently shape time. When one dies, Lucikles, the island’s civil-servant overseer and current Minor Adjutant—the only other person they ever see—brings another baby from the mainland of Maracoor Abiding to be raised as a bride. Their job is all-important, and not quite what it seems.

Days away from their yearly visit by the overseer who ensures their number remains at seven, the women begin to fight over what to do with the strange girl (who they refer to as “Greenie” and “the Rain Creature”), and her talking Goose companion who, in disrupting their daily existence, intensify the ongoing power conflict between the two oldest brides; She’s not a bride, but as only brides live on Maracoor Spot, does that make her a bride by default? If so, the island now has the wrong number of inhabitants; There is no protocol for this.

And so on the annual Visitation Day, where Lucikles is to assess the well-being of the brides of Maracoor, to return to the mainland, and to report their status and their needs, he finds them. Maguire takes us through the days of these characters with grace and specificity, vividly shaping the finite world of this tiny island, which gives the brides everything they require and takes everything from them in return. Rain is essentially the thing that rarely comes to Maracoor Spot: change. Her arrival is a minor speck of chaos that echoes across the mainland of Maracoor Abiding, a nation run by petty magistrates and bureaucrats who are perfectly happy to blame Rain for everything that happens in her wake. And as the mainland’s capital city of Maracoor Crown sustains an assault by a foreign navy from the south, and Lucikles’ family being at stake, the overseer struggles to understand how an alien arriving on the shores of Maracoor could threaten the stability and wellbeing of an entire nation. Is it myth or magic at work, for good or for ill?

The trilogy Another Day will follow this green-skinned girl from the island outpost into the unmapped badlands of Maracoor before she learns how, and becomes ready, to turn her broom homeward, back to her family and her lover, back to Oz, which—in its beauty, suffering, mystery, injustice, and possibility—reminds us all too clearly of the troubled yet sacred terrain of our own lives.


The Story of Wicked
TheWickedYears
AnotherDay
The Wicked Years
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (1995) • Son of a Witch (2005) • A Lion Among Men (2008) • Out of Oz (2011)


Another Day
The Brides of Maracoor (2021) • The Oracle of Maracoor (2022) • The Witch of Maracoor (2023)


Companion book
Tales Told in Oz (2012)


Musical
Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz
Advertisement