Editorial Content for The Bear and the Nightingale
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
In her debut novel, THE BEAR AND THE NIGHTINGALE, Katherine Arden vaults herself into the historical fantasy stratosphere. She’s the new, glittering star amidst longtime luminaries like Naomi Novik and Joanne Harris. Arden paints a stark, yet enchanting, portrait of a medieval Russian landscape and the battle between ancient ghosts that refuse to be laid to rest and the hard, glittering new allure of Christianity and its adherents.
Meet Vasilisa (Vasya) Petrovna, the unruly, spirited daughter of a Russian noble. Her mother died at Vasya’s birth; as the youngest of a large family, the young girl is allowed to run wild in the northern forests. A haze of magic hangs over the woods and the Petrovich estate, where the age-old spirits of Russia past linger, on the verge of fading into mere fairy tales, but visible to a select few --- including Vasya.
"Arden paints a stark, yet enchanting, portrait of a medieval Russian landscape and the battle between ancient ghosts that refuse to be laid to rest and the hard, glittering new allure of Christianity and its adherents."
Content to remain amongst her siblings, Vasya’s world is turned upside down when her father heads to Moscow, meets a mysterious stranger who gives him a jewel for Vasya, and returns with a husband for her sister and a new bride for himself. Her new stepmother, Anna Ivanovna, is reputedly mad, but it turns out that she simply sees the same otherworldly beings as Vasya. Tormented by what she thinks are demons, Anna lashes out at her rebellious stepdaughter and attaches herself to the village’s new priest.
But amidst trouble at home, Vasya is haunted by specters, vampires and zombies that encroach on her home. The spirit world is dying, and it’s up to this witchy young woman to save it, all while dodging her vengeful stepmother, her disapproving father, and the two creatures battling for her very soul: a grasping frost creature and the Lord of Death himself.
Arden makes northern Russia a lush, evocative background for a young girl’s journey to womanhood and self-actualization. Vasya is an appealing heroine, one whose determination to save the old ways and whose clear-eyed perspective are the magical world’s northern star. The author does wait quite a long time to actually bring Vasya fully into the Otherworld, and her compelling scenes in that realm are far too short. But the magic is otherwise alive and well throughout THE BEAR AND THE NIGHTINGALE.
Teaser
In a village at the edge of the wilderness of northern Russia, where the winds blow cold and the snow falls many months of the year, a stranger with piercing blue eyes presents a new father with a gift --- a precious jewel on a delicate chain, intended for his young daughter. Uncertain of its meaning, Pytor hides the gift away and Vasya grows up a wild, willful girl, to the chagrin of her family. But when mysterious forces threaten the happiness of their village, Vasya discovers that, armed only with the necklace, she may be the only one who can keep the darkness at bay.
Promo
In a village at the edge of the wilderness of northern Russia, where the winds blow cold and the snow falls many months of the year, a stranger with piercing blue eyes presents a new father with a gift --- a precious jewel on a delicate chain, intended for his young daughter. Uncertain of its meaning, Pytor hides the gift away and Vasya grows up a wild, willful girl, to the chagrin of her family. But when mysterious forces threaten the happiness of their village, Vasya discovers that, armed only with the necklace, she may be the only one who can keep the darkness at bay.
About the Book
A magical debut novel for readers of Naomi Novik’s UPROOTED, Erin Morgenstern’s THE NIGHT CIRCUS and Neil Gaiman’s myth-rich fantasies, THE BEAR AND THE NIGHTINGALE spins an irresistible spell as it announces the arrival of a singular talent with a gorgeous voice.
At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses. But Vasilisa doesn’t mind --- she spends the winter nights huddled around the embers of a fire with her beloved siblings, listening to her nurse’s fairy tales. Above all, she loves the chilling story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon, who appears in the frigid night to claim unwary souls. Wise Russians fear him, her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil.
After Vasilisa’s mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa’s new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows.
And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. All the while, Vasilisa’s stepmother grows ever harsher in her determination to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for either marriage or confinement in a convent.
As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealed --- this, in order to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse’s most frightening tales.
Audiobook available, read by Kathleen Gati
