I enjoy discovering fantasy based on cultures other than medieval.
In Spinning Silver, the protagonist’s family feel like Polish Jews living where they’re neither accepted nor openly persecuted.
Miryam’s character is compelling. She harbors a bitter delight in prying gold from her neighbor’s closed fists, money her father lent them and was too cowardly to insist they repay, and greed is a sore temptation. Throughout the story, she teeters between kindness and coldheartedness, slowly becoming more and more like the Staryk ice people everyone fears.
I was actually afraid to finish the book because I was worried she would topple over to the dark side. I’d grown to love her, so I didn’t want to see her become a terror! But Miryam’s story ended up being more satisfying and redemptive than I could’ve imagined.
Following her award-winning novel Uprooted, Naomi Novik has once again been influenced by classic folktales. Taking Rumpelstiltskin as her starting point, Spinning Silver is rich, original and a joy to read.
Will dark magic claim their home? Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father's too kind-hearted to collect his debts. They face poverty, until Miryem hardens her own heart and takes up his work in their village. Her success creates rumours she can turn silver into gold, which attract the fairy king of winter himself. He sets her an impossible challenge - and if she fails,…
Wyrd Sisters is one of the funniest books I’ve ever read.
It is unapologetically satirical and seizes upon a well-fleshed-out genre and turns it upon its head, making every last detail into a caricature that somehow creates more interesting, realistic characters than fantasy ever could.
His witches aren’t really mystical but don’t mistake that for lacking power. They’re more like indomitable grandmothers you don’t dare cross.
This book has everything from ghosts to prophecies to bastard sons and lost heirs of the kingdom. Nothing turns out the way you’d expect.
Terry Pratchett’s genius includes an anthropomorphized thunderstorm waiting in the wings after appearing briefly in the opening scenes, only to surprise you with a grand performance in the final act, just when you’d thought it was a very random start to a topsy-turvy story. I’ve never laughed so much!
'Destiny is important, see, but people go wrong when they think it controls them. It's the other way around.'
Three witches gathered on a lonely heath. A king cruelly murdered, his throne usurped by his ambitious cousin. A child heir and the royal crown, both missing.
Witches don't have these kinds of leadership problems themselves - in fact, they don't have leaders.
Granny Weatherwax is the most highly regarded of the leaders they don't have. But even she finds that meddling in royal politics is a lot more complicated than certain playwrights would have you believe. Particularly when the blood…
I loved the protagonist, Agniezka, and all the Slavic-sounding spells in this magical world.
What I found most compelling was how Niezka would encounter characters with varying different ideologies, and even though she was a country girl from a small, outskirts village, she never questioned her own firm beliefs.
Yet she always met more dogmatic characters halfway, showing a compassionate desire to understand where they were coming from, even when she didn’t agree with them. And her love story with “The Dragon” was thrilling! Naomi Novik’s rich fantasy world felt layered enough to be a whole series.
The twists and turns kept me riveted until the very last page. It was one of those lovely stories you long to start over as soon as you’ve read “the end”.
A dark enchantment blights the land in the award-winning Uprooted - a enthralling fantasy inspired by fairy tales, by Naomi Novik, author of the Temeraire series.
Winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novel Winner of the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel Winner of the British Fantasy Society Award for Best Novel
Agnieszka loves her village, set deep in a peaceful valley. But the nearby enchanted forest casts a shadow over her home. Many have been lost to the Wood and none return unchanged. The villagers depend on an ageless wizard, the Dragon, to protect them from the forest's…
A widower and a spinster, Ambrose and his sister Mattie are the last of the Bancrofts. Now they have returned to London, ready to rejoin society. But death is not something one can outrun. Ambrose tries to draw Mattie out of her grief with all the distractions Victorian high society can offer, hoping that orchestrating her happiness will curate his own. But Ambrose's pushing soon leads to a scandal that has them both fleeing to their country seat in disgrace. At Linwood Manor, Mattie and Ambrose aren't as alone as they think. Taking advantage of Mattie's desperate need to find freedom, a vanishing room lures Ambrose's sister into an illusory paradise. When Ambrose vows to get his sister back, by force if necessary, he finds himself up against an otherworldly power bent on her destruction and Mattie's bitterness turned to hatred. When Mattie commits the ultimate betrayal, Ambrose realizes he never stopped protecting her long enough to learn what she really wanted. Despite her rejection, Ambrose tries to reconcile with Mattie, hoping for a second chance to be brother and sister. But before he learns to let her go, Ambrose is broken in body and mind, far beyond his capacity to endure. When the dust settles, will Mattie be lost to him forever? Will Ambrose be the last of the Bancrofts?
