helenid 's review for:

Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher

5.0

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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Another wondrous tale by #TKingfisher I'm honestly not sure how she manages to write so many wonderful books at the rate that she does. Genius, talent, an amazing imagination all wrapped up in a cute name! 📚

This is such a complete twist on a Snow White retelling that it feels like it isn't one at all, more that it's a new story with a fairy tale running in the background. I mean, there is a girl, many apples and a Queen. There's even a mirror, well actually there are rather a lot of mirrors 👸🏻🍎🍏🪞👑 But the story is about our tall, scientific, plain-speaking Anya.

Anya, our hero, is fascinated by poisons and Snow appears to have been poisoned. There's a cute cat: contrary, demanding, elusive. There's even a monosyllabic guard. And that's pretty much all I'm saying as it's such a wonderful story to go into blind and let it just reveal itself 👩🏻‍⚕️🐈‍⬛🗡️

I enjoyed this enormously and would have finished it in one sitting had my Kindle not given up! In tone, this is similar to A Sorceress comes Calling or the Paladin series. It's sweet, scary, imaginative and I love that Anya is nothing like a fairy tale princess. She's strong, capable, 30+, a 'spinster' (I hate that word!) and likes a cup of tea 🫖 She prefers her snake to people 🐍

You are able to purchase this from 21st August and you really should. It's fantastic 😊

Thanks to @PanMacmillan @TorBooksUK and @Netgalley for providing me with an e-arc, all opinions are my own.