"The Girl in the Tower" is the second book in the Winternight trilogy, following the brilliant "The Bear and the Nightingale." Picking up the plot thread of the previous boo right where it was left off, it is an exciting, adventurous and dangerous tale of a Russian girl determined to carve her own way.

Vasya cannot stay in her village, pronounced a witch, so she decides to become a traveler and see the world. After a tense visit to Morozko who again tries to convince her to stay home and live out her life as "women should", she sets out on her journey. She poses as a boy, naming herself Vasilii Petrovich, in order to pass by more inconspicuously. Still, it is Vasya and her curiosity and restless spirit have to read their head.

On the other side of the story we have Olya, Vasya's sister, the Princess of Serpukhov, a mother of two, pregnant with her third child and a  mistress of her own estate. Her young daughter Masha has nightmares about seeing a ghost and she is trying to console the child as best she can amid her other duties. There's also Sasha, Brother Aleksandr Peresvet, Vasya's older brother who left Lesnaya Zemlya to become a monk. He is the Grand Prince's advisor and has been spying on the Tartars in a secret mission in Sarai.

A chase after a group of bandits who burn villages and kidnap young girls unites the characters and the storyline, resolving some issues while creating a whole new set of other, ones that might be even more dangerous. Caught in Vasys'a lie about her gender and name, Sasha and Olya are helpless for they cannot expose her, nor can they let her go on pretending to be someone she's not. 

Another danger lurks in the shadows... Vasya is warned multiple times by the cheryeti that they will all be watching, but she ignores their warning and prophecies. Yet, why does she feel this strange fear whenever she is in the presence of Kasyan Lutovich? A boyar whom no one knows, but who came to ask Dmitrii Ivanovich for help with the bandit problem, he seems to be everywhere and you soon get the feeling that something is not right, even though, for all intents and purposes he seems to do the right things and say the right words.

In this book, alliances are tested, the battle between the old and the new gods is still going on, the new friends Vasya met are in danger of disappearing. The old character are here, too. Morozko is still helping out Vasya, despite is disapproval and the promises that it won't happen again. I was pleasantly surprised by some kisses the pair exchanged, even though at the end it all seems desolate. I love how he actually knows she won't listen to him, that she will go her won way and then tries to be there for her as much as he can. Neither of them are perfect but it feels like they accept each other.

So, I loved the book. Absolutely adored it. The storytelling was superb, the writing magnificent and once again, I felt transported into the settings. The one gripe I have, and it's really only a personal preference, is Vasya's recklessness. I understand that it is in her nature, that's she's always been fearless, that she longs to be free, but somehow, as I was reading what she was doing and saying while impersonating Vasilii the Brave, I wanted to step into the story and slap her. She constantly ignores any counsel from people who mean her well, lets herself be manipulated because of her competitive nature, endangers her family with her recklessness and has several tantrums that don't make too much sense to me. But - she is a teenager, and this is a story of growing up, so I accepted these choices, though I was really irritated by her behavior. Again, this has nothing to do with the quality of the story, I simply wanted to point out that there were times when I slammed the book shut and wanted to throw it across the room. (I didn't. It's too pretty and too good to just throw around.)

Anyway, that is kind of the thing about this book. I loved it, but just as you are annoyed by certain traits of the people you love, I had my issues with Vasya. I accept her as she is but I don't approve of all her actions. The story itself is brilliant, the universe is expanding, the stakes are getting higher and the author writes about the medieval world of Rus' so poignantly that it feels as if you're right there with the characters. Everything feels real, even though there's magic and mythical creatures abound. Be sure to pick up this book and follow Vasya on the continuation of her journey. As for me, I'm getting right into the third book.

Still, it's a cute book, and a quick read for winter - especially with the descriptions of the Denmark cabin and landscape Those are my favorite chapters, to be honest and I felt like much more of the book should have been about that journey to discovery Bo undertakes in Aslbrog.

Marina and Pyotr have four children - a daughter, Olga, and three sons: Nikolai, Aleksandr and Alyosha. But soon Marina feels a quickening in her womb and feels that somehow this is the child she has been waiting for. This is the child she wants for herself, the one she must have, a daughter that will take after her mother.

Vasilisa Petrovna, Vasya, comes into the world just as her mother leaves it. She is an ugly child, with eyes too large, arms and legs too long, feet too big, all around too much. She is a headstrong girl, not afraid to look anyone in the eye, with no shyness that is expected of women, no qualms about doing what he wants at the bewilderment and censorship from the whole village.

Her father, Pyotr, soon realizes that he should get married again because someone needs to take care of the child. Her older sister is to be married and Dunya, the elderly caretaker is getting too old to care for a young, roguish child. So he goes to that capital and brings back Anna Ivanovna.

Anna is... strange. She wanted to go to the monastery because the church is the only place where she doesn't see "the devils". But when she is reluctantly married off ("to be some lord's breeding sow") and comes to the icy north where the old legends and the old gods are still revered she goes crazy. The fact that little Vasya seems to also see these creatures and is talking to them makes her even more irritable.

Convinced that Vasya will bring doom to them all, she urges Pyotr to marry her off, just get her away from their village. When the new priest, the lethally handsome Konstantin, comes to the village Vasya is vilified even more. Her refusal of behaving like a girl "should" chafes the young priest who is used to people venerating him, who is used to having people's attention, their love and fear. But Vasya will have none of it.

On the other side of the human struggles, there is a whole magical world. The old gods who have guarded the people against evil for centuries are now in peril of dying out because the priest has made people afraid, has made them worship the Christian god and abandon their long-time protectors. It is these little creatures that Vasya and Anna can see, thought they have utterly different reactions to them.

Being the one that sees them, and doesn't fear them, Vasya takes care of the spirits, talks to them and learns from their wisdom. She is entangled in a fight for the survival of he whole nation and it is exactly the things that made her an outcast that help her then. She is willing to see beyond what is expected and her courage and defiance help her see her goal through.

An element that I noticed throughout the story is the vilification of women. Whenever anything goes wrong, it must be a woman's fault. She is accused of being a witch and is ostracized or sentenced to death. In this story Vasya is given the option of becoming a nun or dying in the cold forest ("I must be a man's servant and a mare for his pleasure, or I must hide myself behind walls and surrender my flesh to a cold, silent god.") These are the patterns we still see, throwing all the blame on women, somehow always making them the source of evil, even in the most banal cases. A woman's place is in the home, with a husband and kids, and nothing else will fulfill her, right? Even in our modern society where women can have careers, the ones who do not seek to have traditional female roles in their private lives are somehow the reason for the apocalypse. And it is so nice to a see a woman, even in a book, not caring about any of it, simply following her path and pressing on until she realizes her full potential.

Anyway, read this book, don't you dare skip it. I will be reading the two sequels this month as well, so look out for that too. And, go - read.

A woman goes to the Brighton Pride with her girlfriend. She thinks about the IRA and how romantic wars are because you can love whoever you want then, no one pays attention to that. She fantasizes about a redhead girlfriend from Belfast who would kiss both boys and girls and no one would care. Mentions the Skilled Veterans Corps, the retired Fukushima volunteers, as well for some reason. Strange and convoluted.

"If you put your head underwater then everything stops existing."

Aunt Libby has a hotel where people lay in coffins in preparation for death. She lives on an island, where many props are set up to make people believe in her nonsense. Her niece Ankaa is presented as a "death fairy", having come from the underworld, and she can communicate with the dead. The story follows Mr Henderson, a customer, who is touring the grounds in preparation for death, and the ways Libby and Ankaa trick him into believing his wife is haunting him. Weird but I did like it.

"There are different sorts of magic. There is hope, and there is suggestion, and there is listening to the hurt."

A strange story of two girls hunting and killing actual crabs because a sister of one told them they are devil (obviously thinking about the pubic lice). Tabs wants to go to Hollywood, but she also preaches a lot about the devil and witches. Soon she begins hanging out with a boy who has a camera, and it is inferred that she is making porn. Weird story, the pacing, the writing...

"She's full of stories, she is. A tank full to the brim with hundreds of words that all mean different things."

A new planet, The Hours, is discovered where all lost atoms go to retire, it is composed of snippets of time and space. People on Earth are panicking, fearing it would overtake and kill us all, the religious are calling it God, scientists are salivating at the chance to explore it, others think it's a conspiracy by the government to distract us from real issues. The title refers to PhD students who volunteer to orbit the planet in order to explore it.  It feels a bit sci-fi but I like the idea - the existence of a planet like that, as well as some of the social commentary from our planet. Again, wish it was more developed.

"Some say the Hours is the Internet in physical form."

This story seems to be close to the author's heart, because the main character is living with the same physical disability Ms Campbell is. I respect that, but the story is still... hm. Definitely my least favorite. It goes on about different facts, like I'm reading an encyclopedia about the aquatic world, and  I just couldn't focus on what the story actually is. The girl works in an aquarium and loves fish. I just... don't know what else to say. I wish this was better executed because there is an important story to tell here.

"Because princess is beauty."

And there it is. All the stories in my own words. I am glad I read this. It wasn't a total bust, but it was not a completely enjoyable experience either. Still, an experience it was. If you've given this book a try, let me know your thoughts. I seem to be one of the few that did not enjoy it, at least according to Goodreads, so maybe the fault lies with me..

"Few can resist the sight of a pretty girl crying."

2) The Too-Clever Fox is I suppose a conglomeration of all the foxes in the stories we were read. The clever fox who always finds a way is a popular trope, and here the fox is just too clever for its ow good. Koja is an ugly fox with a patchy coat that barely survived his birth -there he sweet-talked his mother out of eating him. He used his smarts to survive, to steal chicken, get out of traps and form alliances. But when a terrible hunter Jurek comes to their forest and animals start disappearing, he is summoned by the others to save them. He befriends the hunter's sister Sofiya and tries to get her to betray her brother... never even doubting his cleverness, never thinking that the worst of monsters hide under the nicest of smiles.

"She had given herself to a monster, in the hope of saving just one girl."

3) The Witch of Duva is a take on Hansel & Gretel, but with quite a few differences. The girls near the Duva forest used to disappear a long time ago, but when a terrible winter came, the wood became hungry again and soon it was happening again... Amidst the chaos, Nadya's mother dies and her father falls into despair over not having enough work and therefore money. Soon, though, he remarries and his new wife, Karina, starts to interfere in their life. She won't led Nadya and her father be alone, she sends the girl away from home and tries to make her miserable... One night, after going out to hunt something for dinner, Nadya stumbles upon a little house in the woods and there finds a witch... The witch takes her under her wing, starts teaching her things and soon, time flies by and she's been there for quite a while... When an enchantment helps her get home she witnesses something she never imagined, not in her wildest dreams... Nothing is as it seems.

"Remember that to use a thing is not to own it."

4) Little Knife tells the story of a cursed village where travelers dare not go. A long time ago, a beautiful daughter, Yeva, was born to a rich duke. She was such an astonishing beauty that the midwife tried to steal her when she was born... Later on, her father hired a blind nursemaid to care for her, and she was prohibited from leaving the house as a riot would break out every time she'd step foot outside and the men saw her... Her father decided he could use her to his advantage and created little contests for men who wanted her hand in marriage. (All the tasks benefited him.) Among the suitors was a Tidemaker, Semyon, who could speak to the river in town, whom he named Little Knife... The river helped him achieve all the tasks... but he kept asking for more, feeling suddenly entitled to her help and to Yeva's hand in marriage... The story does not lead to a happy ending for him, however, though Yeva did live out her days a s a free woman, happy at last.

"He'd fought bravely, and yet somehow, he always ended up here ,alone in the dark."

5) The Soldier Prince is the penultimate story, and is the Grishaverse version of The Nutcracker. Droessen is a doll maker who is famous for his inventions, as they all seem to possess a bit of magic. He is invited to all the social gatherings but still people look at him with suspicion because his power makes them wary. Alas, all he wants is a wife and knowing that he cannot just marry one of the women who are richer than him, he decides to groom one. He makes a nutcracker and gives it to Claire, telling her to confess all her secret, her wants and desires to it... Over time, the nutcracker becomes a confidante of Claire's, and even as she grows into a young woman, she still takes the soldier up to the attic where he is her price who takes her to an enchanted land far away from home... But the nutcracker has no recollection of who he is, he just knows that he is hers.. and that the Rat King who is giving him such kind advice is supposed to be an enemy. But when the soldier decides that he wants to be real, to be more than just Claire's toy, can he fulfill his goal or stay a playmate forever?

"I was not made to please princes."

6) When Water Sang Fire is the last story, a version of The Little Mermaid that makes who you thought was a hero into the villain, and makes to villain sympathetic, giving the backstory people never think a villain would have. Ulla is a Sildroher (mermaid) who is very powerful, her songs are the best in her class and her talent is innate. But she has dark hair and pale skin, her classmates teasing her that she was conceived when her mother was on land, that she was a halfling... One day she makes a friend, Signy, who was forced to sing with her - and when they made powerful magic together they simply clicked. Years later, they are invited to sing at the palace where they meet Roffe, a lazy but ambitious youngest prince who charms them into coming to the land with him. There he is supposed to find a gift for his father that would be the best of all his brothers in order to win the throne. He makes Ulla and Signy perform magic that creates a fire that can be sustained underwater, injuring Ulla in the process and stranding her on land. He and Signy leave, becoming king a queen, and Ulla hides in a a cave, waiting for desperate people who are willing to strike bargains, willing to give up what is most dear to them, waiting for one of the princesses to inevitably visit her...

And that is all. I hope you pick up the book because it is a beautiful collection of both words and illustrations. And sometimes fairytales are for adults, too.

I've had this book on my reading list for a while, but I have been procrastinating on getting to it. I don't know what's going on, but I get this hunger that lasts a while when I just ravenously read through books and books.. and then there's a looong stretch of time when I cannot get to reading a single book. 

Anyway, I finally ordered this and when it got here, I pretty much forced myself to start reading it. There was nothing to force after the first few pages though. Everything I read about this book made me want to read it, and after I managed to actually start doing so, I was hooked.

This is one of the books dealing with the untold stories of women in Greek mythology. Circe is, if you are not familiar with the name, a witch Odysseus meets on his travels back home. She is not really a positive figure in the Homer original, but Madeleine weaves a compelling story that makes her... endearing.

"What do you have to say to me? You threw me to the crows, but it turns out I prefer them to you."

Circe is half-titan, the daughter of Helios and a nymph. She is not beautiful, is actually described as ugly and as having a squeaky voice, a stark contrast from her brother and sister who live up to their divine nature. Often mocked in her childhood, Circe grows up lonely and secluded, still positive and trying to make a life for herself. She is betrayed and hurt by the people she loves, and after finally crossing the line by giving ambrosia to Prometheus (her uncle), convicted for giving humans fire, she is banished to a secluded island to live out the rest of her life alone...

What gives her strength is learning she is a witch, and so she dedicates herself to perfecting her skills. She makes the best of her little island and makes a life for herself... Through trials and tribulations, she manages to keep going. And then she meets Odysseys, an encounter which changes her life forever...

What stood out to me here is how human the protagonist is. As this is a retelling, one would imagine that Circe would be made into a perfect hero - and that everything Homer wrote would be dismissed as misogyny. And though there was an element of that in the original, Circe retains all of her flaws... but flaws are not all she is. We are given reasons, we are given explanations... She becomes this larger-than-life figure who represents strength, perseverance in the face of adversity, and positivity and faith in herself that is astounding.

I dearly recommend giving this novel a try. It's an addictive page-turner that will haunt you for days after you close the last page.