HOW GOOD WAS IT?
8/10
BASICALLY
This book continues Vasya’s adventure from the Bear and the Nightingale.Vasya, our heroine, has left home and is determined to establish a life for herself. She is high time confused and has no idea where to start. After a series of events, she decides to stay at Grand Prince Dmitrii’s court, disguised as a boy. She helps him with a case of bandits burning innocent villages and therefore gains his trust.
Vasya’s brother and sister, Sasha and Olga, are also members of Dmitrii’s court and are conflicted about having to conceal her identity from the Grand Prince because this lie may cost them their lives. Also, Sasha is BFF with the Prince.
To add to the rolling snowball of troubles, Moscow’s court itself is full of danger and secrets.
Morozko, the Frost Demon, is not doing any better than Vasya. The guy just can’t seem to keep his mouth in check whenever Vasya’s face is too close to his.
A mysterious man named Kasyan has a certain amount of influence over Dmitrii’s court and Dmitrii himself, but Vasya can’t decide whether he’s an ally or not.
Anh, oh… the confused priest from Book 1 is unfortunately still alive and beating himself up because he happens to hear whispering voices a lot these days.
SO…
This book is every bit as charming as the first. Vasya’s struggle to find a purpose in her life is extremely relatable. She can see magical creatures, she has a certain talent with horseback riding, she’s fierce and brave, but those things are not enough to for her to survive in the harsh world she lives in (medieval Russia).
The capital city isn’t her village. If people find she can speak to little invisible gnomes and elves, she will be burned alive. If she listens to her sister and be a proper young lady, she will be stuck with a life of bearing and rearing children.
Ultimately, Vasya wants to be an adventurer, she wants to see the world as herself: Vasya.
And may I just say that the scene where she asks Morozko for the money he gave her in Book 1 so that she could self-fund her adventures is straight-up both hilarious and bada**?
Vasya has a huge pride, yes, but she isn’t lacking in practicality.
Sasha and Olga, Vasya’s brother and sister, play as big a part in Vasya’s life in this book as I would like. They too are multidimensional characters and hopefully we will see more of them in the last book.
I actually find it hard to decide which one of Vasya’s siblings is my favorite.
Vasya’s relationship with Morozko arrives at an interesting new state. To make it brief: they’re half romantic, half… wait-why-are-we-together-?
And Morozko… oh, Morozko, where do I begin with you? Whenever a fight or a struggle is about to break out, Morozko’s plan is always “let’s go hide”.
Although, the fact is: this is completely within his character. Morozko is an immortal who’s seen enough to know that some battles are not meant to be fought. To him, people dying is a daily thing — it happens when your job is to deliver spirits to the next world. But let’s just say that the contrast in his attitude and Vasya’s concerning the struggles in the book cracks me up every time.
Also, enough with the kissing and running already, Jack Frost.
The battle chapter in the end is absolutely well written — plenty of character development in just a few short turns of events.
The one thing that could have been better in this book is the final confrontation with the villain. Just like in Book 1, this part of the book is too rushed. With all the building up in the previous chapters and the villain’s history, I believe his defeat should have been a little more detailed.
BOTTOM LINE
Thanks to Morozko and his ice, this book ends with a tearful cliffhanger. And I will definitely finish the last book of the series.
Hello again! Thank you for reading this book. I was also feeling that the books set up a big bad villain throughout the story but they just finished them off quickly and abruptly, but then I think the villain of these stories is not a singular entity but their actions and the repercussions of their actions. Like in the first book, the priest will go off to become a megalomaniac and kill people for fame, the bear will come back in the third book. but its the rippling effect these characters have that is the driving problem of the story. Bear is getting stronger because people have stopped believing in chyreti. This problem will not go away just because the bears is imprisoned again. Kasyan is killed but he manages to Dmitiri’s trust in Sasha and Vasya.
A lot of the problems in the story are affected and made more catastrophic by the villains but these are not created by them.. they will persist even if villains are defeated. I think it gives a more realistic feeling to fairy tale story not a simple ” and the good vanquished evil” dynamic.
Ahh, that is true, the villains’ actions have long-term effects on the characters and the plot. The “bad guy” of every book is part of a grander picture in the last book 😀