Our heroines are almost always beautiful, as though their inner strength must always translate into outer beauty, so it’s nice to see a heroine who isn’t gorgeous by default. She’s smart and strong, and though her appearance is captivating to those who would claim her for their own, she’s never described as particularly beautiful. Vasilisa, or Vasya and she’s usually called in the book, is easily my favorite heroine I’ve encountered this year. The protective spirits are weakened, allowing the demonic forces to rise up, threatening to bring destruction upon them all. When Vasilisa’s father brings home his new, very devout wife who in turn summons a new priest to minister to the people, the old ways are frowned upon. Though they are Christian, the people pay homage to the old spirits of the forest, and so they are protected from the demonic forces that would bring them misery and death. It takes place in the northern reaches of late medieval Russia, deep in the forest where winters are long and harsh and summer is short but beautiful.

This is an amazing book, and all the more so because it’s Arden’s debut novel. I put in a request for it via my library’s digital library and fortunately did not have to wait terribly long for it to arrive. I had seen this book on the shelves at Barnes and Noble, but for some reason, despite the fact that the cover art is so simple and beautiful, I didn’t pay it much mind until Danielle over at Books, Vertigo and Tea read and loved it. 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.Īs 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. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows.Īnd indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa’s new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. Wise Russians fear him, her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil.Īfter Vasilisa’s mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Above all, she loves the chilling story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon, who appears in the frigid night to claim unwary souls.

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.

From Goodreads: At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses.

The bear and the nightingale goodreads