Once I got a little older, I got really into historical fiction, and many of my very influential reads fall into that genre. A tale both intimate and epic, featuring a heroine whose harrowing and wondrous journey culminates in an emotionally resonant finale. None of the others made any protest, though the story of Frost was an old tale, and they had all heard it many times before. Arden’s lush, lyrical writing cultivates an intoxicating, visceral atmosphere, and her marvelous sense of pacing carries the novel along at a propulsive clip.

The brilliant February landscape had given way to the dreary gray of March, and the household of Pyotr Vladimirovich were all sniffling from the damp and thin from six weeks’ fasting on black bread and fermented cabbage. When he touches her hand, Vasya realizes how he gets so many of the women to follow him with his rough skin and beautiful eyes. She looked up to behold Frost himself coming toward her, leaping among the trees and snapping his fingers. It is Vasya - and her own strange gifts - who is the family's only chance against the evil spirits at work.I have also amassed a small library of obscure academic texts on such topics as medieval Russian sexual mores, magical practices, and farming implements. Q: Was there any scene that you wrote and later cut from the final version that still weighs on your mind? BP: As is often the case in fairy tales, the introduction of a stepmother brings conflict to the Petrovich family.

Vasya is faced with the choice of marriage, a convent, or a life in which she’s considered an outsider by her village and her family.

When Dunya comes to for just a minute, she gives the necklace to Vasya and tells her to always wear it and always keep it hidden. From the lyrical prose, to the atmospheric town and forest, to the characters that constantly had me crying, to the message that girls can be anything they want to be, no matter what society tries to confine them to.

The Winter of the Witch plunges us back to fourteenth-century Moscow, where old gods and new vie for the soul of Russia and fate rests on a witch girl’s slender shoulders.But no one was thinking of chilblains or runny noses, or even, wistfully, of porridge and roast meats, for Dunya was to tell a story. Dunya has a dream that night in which a man tells her she must give the necklace to Vasya immediately. I remembered the ferocious, sacrificial love of a parent, of a sibling, and it knocked at my heart, this newly invigorated appreciation for all the invisible ribbons of familiarity and love that are woven through our lives, like a net to break our fall. I think she is a person wholly trapped in a world that allows her no choices, and she is not a strong enough person to carve out happiness for herself in those circumstances. I really enjoy mixing reality and fantasy, but I don’t necessarily see myself redoing fairy tales forever.

By this time, the villagers reject her as a witch who would be best dealt with either through a forced marriage or by being trapped in a convent – exactly the fate that her stepmother hopes to carry out. She is disappointed about marrying such a young man but is ready to assume the responsibility of wife, mother, and royal. Getting a book published is hard, and it took a lot of work to get there, and there were setbacks along the way.Before she can untangle herself from Moscow’s intrigues—and as Frost provides counsel that may or may not be trustworthy—she will also confront an even graver threat lying in wait for all of Moscow itself. For years, people constantly recommended The Winternight Trilogy as one of the most appropriate books to read during the winter season, and I can definitely understand why now. Katherine Arden: Honestly, the whole book went through so many revisions, it’s hard to pinpoint where the hardest moment was. I must be a man’s servant and a mare for his pleasure, or I must hide myself behind walls and surrender my flesh to a cold, silent god. This oven was a massive affair built of fired clay, taller than a man and large enough that all four of Pyotr Vladimirovich’s children could have fit easily inside.