The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden
There are no monsters in the world, and no saints. Only infinite shades woven into the same tapestry, light and dark. One man’s monster is another man’s beloved.
A stunning conclusion to a world-bending fairy tale of a story where the old gods and men find their paths intertwined and the power of faith is on full display.“Winter of the Witch” picks up where book 2 left off and Vasya finds herself again at the mercy of those who fear her strange ways before coming face to face with a demon she thought was banished who hopes to bring hate and fear back into the world and threaten the lives of those she loves while the of whispers of war creeps closer to her homeland. For me, the strongest aspect of this series is the power of faith and the protection it grants you in both good times and bad and how those beliefs can be called into question as time changes. Here we have Vasya who is so tethered to the old ways that when the new system is brought in and the world she was raised in is forgotten she becomes the strange one, too wild or a witch but it is through her unwavering strength and trust in what she knows to be real and the respect granted to those creatures that help her survive where many would have fallen. There’s also a great consequence to that seen in this book as to how far a human girl such as she can travel through the worlds of the gods and how easy it would be to get lost and forget everything you’re fighting for. I love the weaving of Russian history and mythology into a story that’s very much a fairy tale as it calls to the quiet moments of magic from your childhood and the more adult reality of war and that even the best-laid plans might benefit from making deals with devils if it’s for the greater good.
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