Despite all the ordeals she faced in The Bear and the Nightingale, young Vasya’s fiercely independent spirit remains undimmed. Still under suspicion for her father’s death, and with the people of her village continuing to believe she is a witch, Vasya has ignored the frost demon’s warnings and set out into the wintry Russian wilderness in search of adventure, with only her magical horse Solovey for company. After all, what would await her if she returns home? She’ll either be married off to the first available suitor, confined to a convent, or burned at the stake.
After disguising herself as a boy and rescuing a group of stolen children from a gang of murderous bandits, Vasya finds herself reunited with her warrior-monk brother and initiated into the ranks of the Grand Prince of Moscow, whose city is under siege by enemy forces. But there is an even greater, more malevolent threat approaching. In a world where the sprites and nature spirits of the old religion are being steadily exterminated by the expansion of Christianity, will Vasya’s magic be enough to stop it?
The Bear and the Nightingale was a wonderful book. The Girl in the Tower is even better. Like its predecessor, it is an extraordinary blend of fact, fiction and folklore and a fantastical interweaving of medieval Russian history and gothic fairytale. Author Katherine Arden obviously knows both of those subjects inside-out, but it’s the power of her writing and the grand scope of her imagination that really takes your breath away. Somehow she has managed to avoid the traps most other sequels fall into – this is a darker and more energetic novel than The Bear and the Nightingale but it’s still very much an emotional character-driven story, and although The Girl in the Tower is the midpoint in a trilogy – and there are moments when Arden is obviously laying down the pipework for the final entry in the series – it also feels satisfyingly complete within itself. This is magical realism par excellence written by an author who, even though this is only her second book, is already working at a level most established authors can only dream about. Don’t miss it.
THE GIRL IN THE TOWER / AUTHOR: KATHERINE ARDEN / PUBLISHER: DEL REY / RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 25TH
