The Bear and the Nightingale

The Bear and the Nighingale

By Katherine Arden
Published: Del Ray, 2017
Pages: 370
Genre: Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Magical Realism
Amazon, Goodreads

The shadow on the wall. You cannot trust him. Beware the dead.

About the book

At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses. 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. Above all, she loves the chilling story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon, who appears in the frigid night to claim unwary souls. Wise Russians fear him, her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil.

After Vasilisa's mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa's new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows.

And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. 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.

As 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.

Review

The Bear and the Nightingale is an elegantly-woven tale that mixes Russian folklore, fantasy, and complex family dynamics. It's a book that sucks you into a mythical world and won't let you go.

This book is a great example of dark, intriguing atmosphere; it's set at the outer wildness of Russia before modern technology. The The setting is enough alone to be fascinating -  but the author also weaves myth and folklore into the storyline. 

The author creates vivid imagery in the novel that makes the story come to life, such as:

But the chill of that burnt forest, of the frost-demon's touch, lingered. Dunya's bones shook until it seemed they would shake through her skin. All she could see was the frost-demon, intent and despairing, and the laughing face of his brother, the one-eyed creature. The two faces blurred into one. The blue stone in her pocket seemed to drip icy flame. Her skin cracked and blackened when her hand closed tight around it.

The writing is addicting and compelling with an air of mysteriousness and magical realism. 

If you've been following my reviews, you already know that Vasya is my favorite type of protagonist; fierce, strong, independent, and intelligent. Suffocated by society's expectations of who she should be - a mild, well-mannered maiden to be married off and turned into a baby factory - Vasya finds peace in the woods and the ability to be who she was born to be. The other characters are as distinct and well-written as Vasya.

The Bear and the Nightingale is the first book in a trilogy, and I'm curious to how this story will continue. I definitely recommend it.

RATING (out of five puppies):