Books

Review by Knicky L. Abbott

Author name: Naomi Novik

Book Title: Uprooted

“Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: He may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every 10 years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.”

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life. Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for 10 years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.

The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows – everyone knows – that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn’t, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her. But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.

Publication date: 1st March, 2016

Available formats: Paperback, Hardcover, Audiobook and Kindle

Purchase Link: https://www.amazon.com/Uprooted-Novel-Naomi-Novik/dp/0804179050/

I’ve been meaning to write this review since summer 2021, when I first read this book, and I’m afraid I’ve waited too late. But I can’t shake the fact that I must sing the praises of the most wonderful fantasy story I’ve read since my childhood days, no matter how much time has passed since reading it. Perfectly named, and filled with characters I will never forget, Uprooted is the story of a natural village witch, Agnieszka, sacrificed to a beautiful but cold wizard, Sarkan the Dragon, and used for her magic to keep the malevolent, corrupted darkness of the Woods from consuming not only her village, and nearby villages, but all the world.

This book fed me for days, alternating between a languid, poetic, nature-infused read and an exciting, page-turning, moreish binge. No matter where I took my breaks, I couldn’t shake its satisfying hold on my imagination, called and called again by the small adventures and sweeping epic in which Agnieszka found herself entangled, from living with and learning from Sarkan, to the historical intrigue of a taken Queen, lost all these years to the Wood, and the political strongarm of her prince-son demanding that they find his mother. When I read the last line on the last page, I mourned for days the absence of the characters I had come to adore.

It is those characters, their chemistry and their finer details, that is the backbone of this book. I particularly enjoyed the character of Kasia, Agnieszka’s dearest friend, who was not at all who or how I thought she would be at the end of their journey; Her character so quietly strong, resolute and masterful, echoed the skill of novelist Novik in a manner that felt perfectly true to form. Yet it was the character of and behind the Wood itself, that left its mark on my mind as simply fantastic, and one of the most originally-rendered antagonists I have read in a fantasy story to date.

The feeling of time and things in this story are unmatched in their fantastical elements, unmatched and utterly delightful, leaving me greedy and deeply enthralled. It didn’t just feel set in the village of Dvernik in the kingdom of Polnya, it felt set in the very heart of me, and there is nothing more I love than a good story that makes me feel like I’ve come home to myself. A beautiful tale written in beautiful prose, Uprooted will remain a favourite of mine close to forever, and I cannot wait to get into other books of similar ilk to feed the near-hunger it left behind.

Review by Knicky L. Abbott

Author name: Hannah Whitten

Book Title: Wilderwood Book 1 For the Wolf

The first daughter is for the Throne.
The second daughter is for the Wolf.

For fans of Uprooted and The Bear and the Nightingale comes a dark, sweeping debut fantasy novel about a young woman who must be sacrificed to the legendary Wolf of the Wood to save her kingdom. But not all legends are true, and the Wolf isn’t the only danger lurking in the Wilderwood.

As the only Second Daughter born in centuries, Red has one purpose—to be sacrificed to the Wolf in the Wood in the hope he’ll return the world’s captured gods.

Red is almost relieved to go. Plagued by a dangerous power she can’t control, at least she knows that in the Wilderwood, she can’t hurt those she loves. Again.

But the legends lie. The Wolf is a man, not a monster. Her magic is a calling, not a curse. And if she doesn’t learn how to use it, the monsters the gods have become will swallow the Wilderwood—and her world—whole.

Publication date: 1st June, 2021

Available formats: Paperback, Audiobook and Audio CD

For the Wolf is the story of the Second Daughter, Redarys and the Wolf of the Wilderwood, Eammon. It is the story of a sentient, prison wood and its binding forest magic, as it leeches the life from all Second Daughters and all Wolves, in order to hold its shadow monsters and mad kings at bay, and protect the rest of realm. And it is the story of how voluntary sacrifice makes the only difference that matters in the quest for meaning, self-knowledge and the place where you belong.

I gobbled this book down in two days, finding every opportunity to return to its pages, inexorably pulled over and again by the chemistry between its characters, the dark, dreamy telling of their story, and how true it rang in my heart. It’s really special that way. Like a letter to myself written by someone else’s hand.

Red is stalwart about her fate; Eammon stoic about his. She is filled with a dangerous magic – Wilderwood magic – and is willing to be sacrificed to protect those she loves, particularly her twin, Neverah. Eammon is willing to sacrifice himself wholly to protect those lives beyond the woods, because of the fate passed onto him through his parents, the original Wolf and Second Daughter. And as the story is told, they’re both willing to face that fate without cowering, despite their doubts, dread, and misgivings, for love of each other.

The scrumptious, slow-burn romance aside, my favourite part of the story was the curse itself. In almost every dark fairytale I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading, a curse is just a thing made mention of, for the hero or heroes to inevitably overcome. Yet in For the Wolf the curse lives and breathes on every page, between the surrounding trees and the very bones of our main characters, and while it was transmuted and understood deeper by both those characters and I in the end, it never left or was broken in the traditional sense of the word.

In For the Wolf, the magic and worldbuilding, though wonderfully complex, is not too complicated to follow or understand. And the romantic love between Redarys and Eammon, while Red Riding Hood-coded, has a delightful Beauty and the Beast aesthetic, down to the crumbling castle keep in an atmospheric, twilit wood. Much like a Wilderwood Sentinel, it glows brightly on the pages, roots set deep in this first installment of the Wilderwood duology. And much like the Wilderwood itself, is one of the reasons why I can hardly wait for Book 2.

Tag: Books

Uprooted

Review by Knicky L. Abbott

For the Wolf (Wilderwood Book 1)

Review by Knicky L. Abbott