Okay, I’m going to be upfront here that this was a book club pick (my book club pick, actually), and we broke a cardinal rule: never read the first in a series. It’s incredibly difficult to judge character arcs and abandoned plot lines, because you know that the story is only just beginning. That also makes it difficult to write a fair review, but I will try. Do you love whimsical stories rooted in complicated family dynamics? Apparently I do, because I adored reading this […]
It’s 90 degrees here. This made it feel like winter.
I read TheShitWizard’s review and immediately bought this book, read it, and loved it. I am all about some adult-level fairy tales. This is right up my alley. Vasya is a wild child, the fifth in her family, in Northern Russia. She inherited her mother’s and grandmother’s second sight – the ability to see and interact with the invisible guardians, or chyerti. A battle is brewing, though, between the Bear and the Frost-Demon. Konstantin, a compelling and pious priest arrives in the village and introduces […]
Winter in Russia, and a monster in the dark.
This was not quite what I was expecting. I think I was expecting something more along the lines of Naomi Novik’s Uprooted, because people have compared them endlessly, but aside from taking inspiration from Russian folklore, the two books don’t have very much in common. Uprooted is a fairytale, albeit one that is lengthened and deepened. The Bear and the Nightingale is a historical fantasy that is historical fiction first, fantasy second. This book takes place in medieval Russia, then called Rus’. The daughter of […]
The Perfect Cozy Fairy Tale with a Dash of Religion, Politics and Russian History
I loved this book so much! In many ways, it was a straightforward tale, with many elements familiar with traditional fairy tales but Arden created such sympathetic character and played with history and religion so well to create something that went deeper while feeling completely true to folk tales and fairy tales. Arden does not waste time in foreshadowing the themes that will drive the story. The novel begins on a cold, hard winter night with four children gathered around the fire to listen to […]