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NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A magical debut novel for readers of Naomi Novik’s Uprooted, Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, and Neil Gaiman’s myth-rich fantasies, The Bear and the Nightingale spins an irresistible spell as it announces the arrival of a singular talent with a gorgeous voice. 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.
Praise for The Bear and the Nightingale“Vasya [is] a clever, stalwart girl determined to forge her own path in a time when women had few choices.”
—The Christian Science Monitor“Stunning . . . will enchant readers from the first page. . . . with an irresistible heroine who wants only to be free of the bonds placed on her gender and claim her own fate.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)“Utterly bewitching . . . a lush narrative . . . an immersive, earthy story of folk magic, faith, and hubris, peopled with vivid, dynamic characters, particularly clever, brave Vasya, who outsmarts men and demons alike to save her family.”
—Booklist (starred review)“Arden’s supple, sumptuous first novel transports the reader to a version of medieval Russia where history and myth coexist.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)“Radiant . . . a darkly magical fairy tale for adults, [but] not just for those who love magic.”
—Library Journal “An extraordinary retelling of a very old tale . . .
The Bear and the Nightingale is a wonderfully layered novel of family and the harsh wonders of deep winter magic.”
—Robin Hobb “A beautiful deep-winter story, full of magic and monsters and the sharp edges of growing up.”
—Naomi Novik
“Haunting and lyrical,
The Bear and the Nightingale tugs at the heart and quickens the pulse. I can’t wait for her next book.”
—Terry Brooks “
The Bear and the Nightingale is a marvelous trip into an ancient Russia where magic is a part of everyday life.”
—Todd McCaffrey “Enthralling and enchanting—I literally couldn’t put it down.”
—Tamora PierceAn Amazon Best Book of January 2017: There s a small but mighty space where fantasy and literary fiction can clasp hands and create a brilliant story that resonates in the soul.
The Bear and the Nightingale lives squarely in that space, and those who dare to visit this novel will leave entranced. Set in the fourteenth century in the bitter north, a two-week ride from the rough city of Moscow, this mesmerizing tale centers on Vasya Petronova, a girl who barely survives birth (her mother doesn t) and grows up with a secret affinity for the sprites and demons that live in and around her village. "A wild thing new-caught and just barely groomed into submission" is how her father imagines her, and he s not wrong. As her family tries to harness her into the typical domestic life of a young noblewoman, Vasya spends more and more time among the sprites and soon gets caught between two old and powerful gods struggling for domination over her part of the world. Arden s debut novel builds like a thunderstorm, with far-off disquieting rumblings that escalate into a clash between sprites and humans, ancient religions and new, honor and ambition. If you haven t picked up a Russian-style novel lately, it can take a few chapters to recall that each character has a handful of nicknames you have to keep track of and that various storylines may take their time in weaving back into the main plot, but it s well worth the effort. And while I think there are only a dozen or so novels in this world that have a perfect ending, I would put
The Bear and the Nightingale high on that list.
--Adrian Liang, The Amazon Book Review
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