A couple of things! I’m working on another standalone, fairy-tale themed YA novel. This one is based on Cinderella, but in my story she’s faked her father’s death to save him from the conniving of her wicked stepmother and foil a treasonous plot that threatens the crown. I’m also working on a series set in 18^th Century London involving a cross-dressing runaway heiress and a dissolute viscount and magic and murder and general shenanigans. 

I am always up for a fairy tale retelling, and I'd had my eye on Kate Forsyth's collection Vasilisa the Wise since it came out earlier this year. I finally read it in September, after I saw Kate speaking on writing historical fiction about womencat the Heroines Literary Festival. If anyone knows about fairy tales, and will inspire and intrigue you enough to want to know more it is Kate Forsyth! I strongly recommend listening to her on Richard Fiedler's Conversations (Including this one where she talks about Vasilisa, but I think she has spoken with him on there three or four times) - she is sooooo good!

Vasilisa the Wise is a collection of short fairy tales about 'brave young women', retold by Kate for a YA audience and beautifully illustrated by Lorena Carrington.


In the foreword, Kate talks about how fairy tales were stories passed from women to girls, to help them as they moved from childhood to womanhood, and from their family homes out into the world. Nowadays most of the fairy tales we read have been retold by men - whether it's the Brothers Grimm, Walt Disney, or anyone in between. One of the things I adored about this book was that it felt like Kate's retellings were taking back the stories for girls and women. In each fairy tale in the collection she has put the cleverness, courage, and strength of the young women protagonists at the centre of the story.

Overall I just think this book is divine. As well at the story-telling (which I'm clearly in love with) the images are just incredible - they are created from photos, and I really enjoyed reading the comments from the artist (Lorena Carrington) on the thought behind each image. Similarly, it was so interesting to read Kate's comments on each fairy tale about her inspiration and some of her reasons for choosing each one.

I think this would make an excellent gift for a fairy tale lover of any age (although I've seen it marketed as YA, I think it is suitable down to middle grade readers too), and I was absolutely thrilled to see that Kate and Lorena will be releasing a follow-up next year - The Buried Moon - definitely one to keep an eye out for!

xo Bron

***Vasilisa the Wise***

On Goodreads
Source: I bought this online (I don't think I've seen it in store anywhere) - and I'll probably buy a few more for gifts!
Genre: Fantasy/Fairy Tale (YA/MG)
Read it if you love: Fairy Tales, feminism

I always think it is a bit tricky to talk in isolation a book that is part of a series but not the first book - to much missing context, not to mention risk of spoilers for earlier books! So today, instead of just talking about The Girl in the Tower - book two in the Winternight Trilogy - I'm going to talk a bit more generally about the series and include book one - The Bear and the Nightingale - too.



I read The Bear and the Nightingale in 2017, and picked it up of its beautiful cover. (I'm starting to wonder whether I should be embarrassed about how often my reading is decided by how pretty covers are? haha). Here's the summary of The Bear and the Nightingale, from Goodreads, just to set the scene a bit...

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.

This series feels to me kind of like Tolstoy's works had a baby with Tolkien's - there is a fantastic feeling of an epic fantasy-ish adventure set on the backdrop of a Russia that is written in a way that  makes it feel like historical fiction.

This combination really hit the spot for me for a bunch of reasons...

• There was something about the writing that I just can't put my finger on that made it feel like a traditional fairy tale - all lush and magical
• I am fascinated by the books set where a society is moving from the old beliefs to Christianity, and we get to see the tension between the two - the people almost converted but still a bit afraid to upset their traditional spirits, and the church saying that they are being punished for not being  dedicated enough to God. And, in particular, the role of women in this time - where we see, for instance, healer women and accusations of witchcraft. This was something I also loved in Hannah Kent's The Good People, and am keen to read more about (please leave me some recommendations in the comments if you have any!)
• And, along the same lines, I'm really interested at the moment in fiction that examines the role of women in society - in this case these is the very clear expectation on Vasilisa that her future is either as wife and mother or in convent - and what happens when a women rejects both of these options (again with the 'witch' accusations).

In terms of reading challenges, this book met the criteria for one task on the Read Harder Challenge -
5. A book set in or about one of the five BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, or South Africa) - this being set in Russia.

Oh, and one more thing - I found it took me a little while to remember all the names and who was who when picked up the second book, so I'd recommend reading them together (although it all did come back to me pretty quickly). Quite a lot of Russian words pop up in the text, but there is a glossary, so make sure you check that out!

xo Bron

The Girl in the Tower is out now from Penguin Random House, and (according to Goodreads) it looks like the final book in the trilogy  - The Winter of the Witch - is due out this August.
Thank-you to Penguin Random House for providing me with a free e-copy of The Girl in the Tower  (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review!

I love fairy tales, and this year have been going through a bit of an obsession with reading retellings of all kinds.My latest fairy tale read, middle grade book The Ice Maiden's Tale, is a bit different - it's an original fairy tale author Lisa Preziosi wrote after being inspired by this quote by Michelangelo: 
"I saw an angel in the marble and I carved until I set him free" 

Quinsey Wolfe's Glass Vault by Candace Robinson is out now. I received an e-book copy in exchange for an honest review.