Katherine Arden’s bestselling debut novel spins an irresistible spell as it announces the arrival of a singular talent with a gorgeous voice. “A beautiful deep-winter story, full of magic and monsters and the sharp edges of growing up.”—Naomi Novik, bestselling author of UprootedWinter lasts most of the year at the edge of the Russian wilderness, and in the long nights, Vasilisa and her … and in the long nights, Vasilisa and her siblings love to gather by the fire to listen to their nurse’s fairy tales. Above all, Vasya loves the story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon. Wise Russians fear him, for he claims unwary souls, and they honor the spirits that protect their homes from evil.
Then Vasya’s widowed father brings home a new wife from Moscow. Fiercely devout, Vasya’s stepmother forbids her family from honoring their household spirits, but Vasya fears what this may bring. And indeed, misfortune begins to stalk the village.
But Vasya’s stepmother only grows harsher, determined to remake the village to her liking and to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for marriage or a convent. As the village’s defenses weaken and evil from the forest creeps nearer, Vasilisa must call upon dangerous gifts she has long concealed—to protect her family from a threat sprung to life from her nurse’s most frightening tales.
Praise for The Bear and the Nightingale
“Arden’s debut novel has the cadence of a beautiful fairy tale but is darker and more lyrical.”—The Washington Post
“Vasya [is] a clever, stalwart girl determined to forge her own path in a time when women had few choices.”—The Christian Science Monitor
“Stunning . . . will enchant readers from the first page. . . . with an irresistible heroine who wants only to be free of the bonds placed on her gender and claim her own fate.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Utterly bewitching . . . a lush narrative . . . an immersive, earthy story of folk magic, faith, and hubris, peopled with vivid, dynamic characters, particularly clever, brave Vasya, who outsmarts men and demons alike to save her family.”—Booklist (starred review)
“An extraordinary retelling of a very old tale . . . The Bear and the Nightingale is a wonderfully layered novel of family and the harsh wonders of deep winter magic.”—Robin Hobb
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Not like anything I’ve read before. Enchanting and beautiful. Makes me want to learn more about Russian folk lore.
I am not usually a giver of 5 stars for a book but this story grabbed me from the start and never let go. Russian folklore is not something I am familiar with but I was entranced with all the stories in it. Vasilisa is the last born of Pyotr and Marina. She is the last hope to save the village from the return of Medved. With the help of the winter king she has to try to bind him again. With a village against her, naming her witch she must do what it takes to save them even if they don’t realize she is all they have. Looking forward to book 2!
Very engaging, I couldn’t put it down! Very vivid and well-researched.
Fascinating and makes you really care about the characters. All three of the trilogy were excellent.
Enjoyed rhis book. Plenty of fantasy to keep me satisfied! Insight into how women have been treated throughout the years!
I absolutely 5
Wonderful story! Fasinating look at medieval Russia before the rise of the Czars.
Death & the Maiden book with a Russian folklore twist.
The dark side of a fairy tale with an adult point of view. Twisted, tormented personalities exhibiting positive and negative sides of spirituality
The Bear and the Nightingale is one of my favorite books of 2017. It is magical and cozy and utterly perfect. Arden evokes numerous Russian folktales about the spirits of hearth and forest and brings those beings into direct confrontation with Christianity. Russia itself figures as a setting and a character; this is a book that will make you feel the intense, deadly cold of a Russian winter—with the undead on the prowl.
Vasya is the heroine, a girl who carries on the magical legacy of her mother by being able to communicate with the spirits around her. The immediately evokes some tropes—you know that the village will likely come after her with torches and pitchforks—but the book still engages and surprises. Vasya is fantastic and strong, a young woman who will never be content to idle at home and bear sons. I loved her all the more when she formed a special bond with horses. FYI: magical horses come into play. I was reading this on a plane and I had to resist the girlish urge to squeal in joy.
Let me make clear, though, that this isn’t a novel that is all light fairytales and enchanted horses. No, this book gets DARK. Like I mentioned earlier, the undead are roaming about in the thick of winter. It’s intense, horrific at times, but it doesn’t dwell there long because Vasya is in control of her own fate. She won’t let her own story dwell in the darkness.
One of my other favorite books this year was The Queen of Blood by Sara Beth Durst. If you love that book, do yourself a great kindness and get The Bear and the Nightingale. They both feature brilliant, fresh takes with magic, blood, and powerful women.
This is not the usual type of story I pull off the bookshelf: Russia, deep winter, fairy tales, forest spirits, winter demons. But I really enjoyed this story! A strong main character, interesting supporting characters, totally fantastical world but easy to suspend disbelief and get swept away. It’s a trilogy too—I’m on the hunt for #2.
I loved this book. If you love Russian fairy tales and books based on them you will also.
A beautifully written, and surprisingly suspenseful fairy tale.
Amazing writing. One of the best I’ve read in a long time.
An appealing story from an era in Russia that you seldom hear about. Good transliteration of Russian words . I thoroughly enjoyed it.
With a unique blend of Russian folklore, fairy tales, and magic, Katherine Arden has written an action-packed tale that is a real page-turner. Her amazingly detailed worldbuilding provides the background for this creative trilogy. Vasilisa is strong and determined; her character grows throughout the novel as she is challenged with increasingly strange occurrences in her world. I’m truly looking forward to reading about her upcoming exploits as she goes off on her own, leaving her family behind.
If you enjoy fantasy, this is series that should not be missed.
Liked the protagonist and the ending was good leaving plot open to sequel.
I am usually a pretty big fan of fairy tale retellings, especially when it is one like this was blurbed to be, a not so well known Russian tale. I was lucky enough to win an advanced copy through a Goodreads giveaway. However, when I first began this, I was afraid I wasn’t going to finish it. It took me a bit to get into it. In the end though, I’m glad I stuck it out, as it turned out to get really good, and so hard to put down!
The story is about the winter demon basically. At the beginning, the mother of the family goes off to the woods, and swears that she will have a baby like her own mother was. Her mother was part royalty, but also had some kind of unusual ancestry. And when she has this child, she dies in childbirth, and the new child is odd. This new little girl is named Vasilisa. Vasilisa doesn’t behave like a normal girl would, she enjoys playing outside and stays outside. She also acts like she sees the little creatures that are part of the Russian folklore. Well, she really does see them, even some of the dangerous ones that she is able to help save some of the townfolk from. When her father travels into Moscow, he ends up with a wife, and soon after that, a new priest. A priest who wants to force the backwards village people to give up all of their old ways and “false idols” to worship only the one true god. But in doing so, the villagers lose their protection against the winter demon and soon bad things start to happen. The winter gets really bad. Very large wolves begin attacking. And the people begin to turn on Vasilisa, believing she must be a witch because she doesn’t give up the old ways.
All kinds of things are tried, her stepmother even tries to send her away when her father is not there, wanting to get rid of her, and the attention that the priest seems to be giving to Vasilisa instead of the stepmother. The stepmother has always seen the creatures, and thinks they are demons and that she is going crazy when she sees them.
There is so much more to this story. Vasilisa will have to go back into what her mother did to bring her into this world, and she will discover her own connection to the winter demon, and why she can see all these creatures. She will also have to figure out if there is a way she can help her people, basically save them, when it seems the person they have now turned to for their salvation, is the one that has brought the devil into their midst.
Like I said, it took me a while to get into, about a fourth of the way before I was to the point of having trouble putting it down. But halfway through I was at the point that I could barely put it down to go to work or bed or anything else. If you have the patience for the slow beginning build up, the payoff is totally worth it in the end.
A retelling of old stories for retelling to the next generation. Books 2 and Book 3 of this tale are just as good.
So much fun to read, and loved all the history and fantasy that went along with it!