The Girl in the Tower - Katherine Arden (The Winternight Trilogy #2)

Oh second books.  They're a bear--and just when you thought that Vasya had defeated the bear.  I was excited about this book, as I adored The Bear and the Nightingale, and this volume promised us adventure for Vasya, moving out into the world beyond her small village and a step into full adulthood, and maybe even more glimpses of the tantalizing frost demon Morozko.

Unfortunately, I didn't feel that this was quite as strong of a book as the first one.  There are some strong elements to it, certainly--we get to see more of the siblings that were rarely glimpsed in the the first book, as Olga and Sasha left fairly early on in the first volume.  Vasya does get to see the world, and learns a little bit in the process, though perhaps after her ordeals in the first book she shouldn't have been quite as naive when she went out into the wide world beyond.  And we get to watch the development of Morozko's feelings towards Vasya, feelings that he is not supposed to have, though this remains a minor element and is not nearly as played up as I would have liked to have seen.  (Please, someone, tell me there is a robust fanfiction community for this series somewhere, because this is a series that could spawn some amazing fanfics.)  However, Vasya's naivete, constant need of rescue, and headstrong ways are getting old, and they're getting old fast.  Despite literally everyone telling her that she is making a mistake kin the way she goes about things in this book, she does whatever she wants anyway, because no one understands her, clearly.  Not even when the answer is staring her right in the face.  Again, one would think she'd learned something from her first paranormal go-round, but no.  Of course not.

Vasya has reason to be frustrated and to strain against confines, of course.  Women don't exactly have the best lot in life in medieval Russia.  If Vasya is discovered to be a girl rather than the boy she travels as, she could be raped and murdered at worst, or confined to a tower for all her days at best, as her sister is.  Vasya does not want to spend her days in a tower; she wants adventure.  However, if she wants adventure, perhaps she should have listened to a number of people who told her that parading about Moscow barely disguised as a boy was not the way to go about it, and was in fact probably the best way to be caught out and open a whole kettle of fish that could mean death for, oh, her entire family.  Additionally, beyond Vasya parading around as a boy, having smug conversations with her horse, and making herself out to be the best thing before sliced bread, nothing really happens here until the last fifteen percent of the book.  The writing is lovely, but without character growth or compelling action to move the story along, it's just not enough to make this a strong book on its own.  The wonderful atmosphere and magic of the first volume were largely gone, both literally and figuratively, and they left a weaker book in their wake.

This was decidedly a second book, and it suffers from Second Book Syndrome.  I still have high hopes for the third volume, The Winter of the Witch, due out later this year--but while The Bear and the Nightingale will be listed in my favorite reads, The Girl in the Tower most certainly will not.

2.5 stars out of 5.

The Bear and the Nightingale - Katherine Arden (The Winternight Trilogy #1)

The Bear and the Nightingale is what I wanted from a Russian-themed fantasy and what I didn't really get from the Grisha trilogy.  Yes, Grisha was meant to be bigger and flier, and it was that--but it lacked warmth and depth and heart, and TBATN has that in spades.

The main character here is Vasilisa, though she doesn't really come into her own until the second half of the book, being too young to do much for the first half.  The first half instead follows her family and other characters as they come together in Vasilisa's small town on her father's lands.  Among these are Konstantin, a priest who paints icons and wants to save souls at any cost, and Anna, the daughter of the Grand Prince who becomes Vasilisa's stepmother following the death of Vasilisa's birth mother.  Also coming the village is a strange pendant given to Vasilisa's father by a man no one else remembers, who seems almost inhuman--the pendant being meant for Vasilisa herself, though her nanny keeps it from her for years.

Vasilisa is the daughter of a witch, or so it's said, and she can see the household and forest spirit s that populate her father's lands.  But with the arrival of the priest and the fear he puts into the villagers, the spirits begin to weaken and a menace in the forest becomes stronger and stronger.  Fear, fire, and famine threaten the village, and while Vasilisa does what she can to keep the friendly spirits strong and the evil at bay.  But she is just one person, and the duel between the menace in the woods and the strange blue-eyed man who wants Vasilisa becomes ever more fraught with peril.

This starts out as a very low fantasy and slowly escalates into the higher realms as it progresses--more magic, more spirits, more supernatural conflict.  Vasilisa does not go along slinging spells or enchantments; the magic she possesses is more of a "seeing and understanding" type aided by the stories that her nanny told her when she was younger.  Consequently, the magic is very atmospheric and has a mystical and yet cozy feel to it, with the dark lurking beyond at the same time.  The setting is a period when Russia was ruled by the Tartars (aka the group composed of Mongul and Turkish elements that came together under Genghis Khan) and kind of lends itself to a fairy tale setting.  The writing itself is very good; I think Arden balanced the characters and plot elements well.  That said, the first half of the book is very slow.  It takes a long time for things to get set up and going, and I kept telling myself it would but at times I felt like despairing that anything would ever happen.  This book also isn't a romance, and I felt like that was an element I was looking for to some degree in the later parts of the book, as it would not have been appropriate in the earlier parts; there wasn't much room left for it, but man, Morozoko is awesome.  Maybe something for future books???

Overall, this was a fabulous read to start the new year with.  I'm greatly looking forward to reading the second volume, which was released in December, but I think I'll hold off on it so that I can space it between this one and the third book's release, which is dated for August.

4 stars out of 5.