The Bear and the Nightingale - Review
Link to the author's (K. Arden) personal website
Genre: Fantasy
Publication Type: Book
Tags:
- Average Age of Main Characters (17)
- Length (4 / 10)
Link to Goodreads
Blurb: At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses. But Vasilisa doesn't mind—she spends the winter nights huddled around the embers of a fire with her beloved siblings, listening to her nurse's fairy tales. Above all, she loves the chilling story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon, who appears in the frigid night to claim unwary souls. Wise Russians fear him, her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil.
After Vasilisa's mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa's new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows.
And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. All the while, Vasilisa's stepmother grows ever harsher in her determination to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for either marriage or confinement in a convent.
As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealed—this, in order to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse's most frightening tales.
Review: This is the book that made me add the mythical tag to this site, as so many elements of the book were directly lifted from folktales. I really enjoyed reading it too, and it nailed being a small book with a complete story and captivating universe. The book served as a nice peak into folktales that I didn't grow up around too, where the concepts of some of the spirits and stories had a very different flavour than what I grew up around. Solid good read with some well written menacing scenes, recommend from me. The book is part of a larger series, but is self-contained.