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 book. The Bear and the Nightingale is the first installment in The Winternight Trilogy, by Katherine Arden. It is a lovely fairytale mostly set in the medieval white winters of northern Russia, rife with monsters, helpful creatures, and even a wicked stepmother. Arden creates a charming world of frost and magic that could easily enchant an unsuspecting reader, like myself, into believing it is a reinvention of the classic genre. It is not.
To read the rest of the review, click here.
You snagged me with your review title and now I’m curious about this series. Thanks!
I didn’t realize this was a series starter. It looks like the third one was published this month, so hopefully you’ll get resolution soon.
I just finished the second one, The Girl in the Tower and dove straight into book 3, The Winter of the Witch. If you like the family dynamics, while also learning a lot about medieval Russian history and folklore, you are likely to enjoy the second as well, and the few reviews I’ve allowed myself say that book 3 is a worthy and very satisfying end to the trilogy. As someone who got the first book as an ARC (it was one of my top books of the year the year I read it), I’ve been waiting for the conclusion for a long time.