Friday Friyay: 'The Girl in the Tower' by Katherine Arden

 Happy Friday and happy International Women's Day! I have been feeling kinda weird this week, with an odd mix between feeling really good and then feeling utterly uninspired minutes later. (I think it might have something to do with the grey spring weather...) Anyways, I have a friend visiting this weekend, which will be really fun and will hopefully kick my ass back into gear! Aaaaand I've decided to reread one of my favourite trilogies, the Winternight books by Katherine Arden. I was obsessed with these books from the moment I devoured The Bear and the Nightingale in 2017, The Girl in the Tower in 2018, and The Winter of the Witch in 2019. Now I got a friend started on the trilogy, but before lending her my copies I decided to give them a reread myself. Raced through the first one in a night, so she's already got that one, so you get a taste of the second one today, The Girl in the Tower:

The Bear and the Nightingale, Katherine Arden’s enchanting first novel, introduced readers to an irresistible heroine. Vasilisa has grown up at the edge of a Russian wilderness, where snowdrifts reach the eaves of her family’s wooden house and there is truth in the fairy tales told around the fire. Vasilisa’s gift for seeing what others do not won her the attention of Morozko—Frost, the winter demon from the stories—and together they saved her people from destruction. But Frost’s aid comes at a cost, and her people have condemned her as a witch.

In The Girl in the Tower, Vasilisa faces an impossible choice. Driven from her home by frightened villagers, she has only two options left: marriage or the convent. She cannot bring herself to accept either fate and instead chooses adventure, dressing herself as a boy and setting off astride her magnificent stallion Solovey.

But after she prevails in a skirmish with bandits, everything changes. The Grand Prince of Moscow anoints her a hero for her exploits, and she is reunited with her beloved sister and brother, who are now part of the Grand Prince’s inner circle. She dares not reveal to the court that she is a girl, for if her deception were discovered it would have terrible consequences for herself and her family. 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.

Book Beginnings is at home on Rose City Reader, hosted by Gilion Dumas, and Friday 56 at Freda's Voice, hosted by Freda. Freda is taking a break at the moment, but Anne over at My Head is Full of Books is thankfully keeping the spirit going! I'll also be joining the Book Blogger Hop, hosted by Billy over at Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. 

BB: 

'Prologue

A girl rode a bay horse through a forest late at night. This forest had no name. It lay far from Moscow - far from anything - and the only sound was the snow's silence and the rattle of frozen trees.' p.1

I. The Death of the Snow-Maiden

Moscow, just past midwinter, and the haze of ten thousand fires rose to meet a smothering sky. To the west a little light lingered, but in the east the clouds mounded up, bruise-colored in the livid dusk, buckling with unfallen snow.'  p.7

I still love how Katherine Arden wrote this trilogy. It is such a fairy tale vibe throughout and I just loved how Arden described the woods and village life in the first book. In this one, we're kind of splitting our time between Moscow's bustling city life and what happens out on the countryside/in the wild, which was a really nice expansion of the world.

F56:

'But in the singing heat, the soft breath of the steam, Vasya's breath slowed, and slowed again, until she lay quiet in the darkness and the frigid knot of grief inside her loosened. She lay on her back, open-eyed, and the tears ran down her temples, to mingle with her sweat.' p.56

Vasya, my beloved. I just adore this girl so much and I was so glad Arden gave her a moment to actually sit (or float in a bath) with everything that has happened. I am surprised at how much I continue to enjoy rereading this trilogy. I'm almost a decade older than I was when I read them for the first time, and they're still hitting home.

BBH:

This week's question was suggested by Billy himself:

Do you use a book's synopsis for your review?

Yup! If it's a NetGalley read I'll use the one they share there, or I'll just pull it from Goodreads, like I did above for The Girl in the Tower. I actually then do also give my own summary of the plot which... thinking about it now may be doubling it up? But I like telling people roughly what the book is about, what themes are at play, etc. without spoiling it. And so often the synopses that you find are just marketing blegh which either spoils things or does not reflect

Update on last Friday Read: last time I shared quoted from Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake. Although I enjoyed it, I have to admit it was a bit meh. If you're gonna tease me with epic trials and queens murdering one another, don't end your first book before any of that happens, that's mean. Also, I may be too old for 16 (18?)-year old protagonists...

So that's it for me! What are you reading?