I recently saw a review of this novel on NPR’s web site which compared it to Beauty and the Beast. Frankly, I don’t see it, but that’s okay because it’s so much better than a retelling of any known fairy tale. Novik combines elements of Slavic fairy tales, magic, and even some Tolkienesque flourishes (she admits to being a fan and it comes through in the work) to create a complex story about powerful women and friendship, the merits and difficulties of collaboration, and finding […]
Somewhere, someone’s dream was coming true. And someone’s was ending…
It’s been almost three years since the first book in this series, Kill Me Softly, was published. I had actually forgotten it even existed, but I really liked the first one, so I decided to read onwards. It’s nice that you don’t have to read the first book to understand the second. They take place in the same universe, but they focus on different characters, with the same characters in the background. It’s about a city called Beau Rivage where people are cursed to live […]
Forget the past when it’s too terrible to face
Knocking out another VF book club review with Deerskin. Instead of aliens and greek-like gods, we read a dark fairytale about a princess named Lissar whose mother was the most beautiful queen of all the kingdoms. Her beauty so captivating that all the land including the King hardly remember the princess exists. But alas the queen cannot live forever, so she captures her beauty in a striking painting before her death. It’s almost as if she curses her daughter to live behind her shadow even after death. [MILD […]
The Twelve Dancing Princesses, circa 1920
The Girls at the Kingfisher Club is a reimagining of the fairy tale The Twelve Dancing Princesses set in 1920s New York city. It features twelve lovely and lively sisters, their miserly and evil king-like father, speak easies, bootleggers and flappers. The girls’ mother has died and dad, disappointed in having no male heir, has kept his girls imprisoned their entire lives in the upstairs of their Fifth Avenue house. Mr. Hamilton is a shrewd businessman but terrible father. Oldest daughter Jo, in order to […]
A poignant tale of motherhood and finding your place in the world.
Part morality tale, part metaphor and part poetic fable, The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly is a short novella that was a bestseller in the author’s native Korea. It tells the story of the short but hard fought life of a small hen and her struggle to find her place and purpose in the world. Naming herself Sprout, she has one goal initially – to break free from her battery cage and raise an egg of her own. She is left for dead by […]
There’s a monster in the woods that tears people’s hearts out
Rowan Rose lives in the little village of Nag’s End with her father. Like her father, an experienced scholar, Rowan enjoys assisting him with translations and is proud of her achievements. Five soldiers ride through the village on their way up the mountain, and some days later, are found horribly killed by the men of the village. In a journal left by one of the soldiers are the words: “It’s starting.”. The elders of Nag’s End declare the deaths the result of an animal attack, but not […]
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