Disclaimer! I got this as an ARC through NetGalley in return for a fair and unbiased review.The book is available now.
While this remarkable novel by Naomi Novik isn’t actually a retelling of some traditional fairy tale, it feels like it should be. The book moves slowly, thoroughly establishing the sleepy little environment Agniezka and Kasia live in, with the terrors of the slowly encroaching Wood so close by. Once someone disappears in the Wood, they will hopefully stay lost. Should they return, they are like creatures possessed spreading its malevolent influence. It’s because the dangers that threaten them constantly that the villagers accept having to sacrifice a young woman to the mysterious and reclusive wizard who lives in the tower nearby. He keeps them for ten years, when they return to their families briefly, apparently unharmed but inevitably changed. They never seem content to stay in their home villages, usually going to the capital, rarely to return.
The Dragon always chooses the most promising and accomplished of the women, and so everyone in the area are expecting Kasia to be the next young woman to be taken. It’s a huge surprise to everyone, not least Agnieszka, when she is the one selected to go with the wizard. She barely gets time to say good bye to her loved ones before the Dragon sweeps her away. Now, terrified and confused, because while the women who return from the Dragon’s service always appeared healthy and unmolested, there were always rumours. They lived alone with a man for a decade after all. The impatient and surly wizard seems completely uninterested in her physically though, and after finding a note from a previous occupant of her room, Agnieszka is relieved that she won’t be molested in any way. She tries to follow the orders of her new master, but because the Dragon isn’t exactly very clear in what he actually wants, it takes her quite a while to understand that he’s trying to teach her magic, and his lessons are not going as expected. It’s only when she finds the dusty spell book of a legendary witch that she seems to get the magic to work for her.
At first the Dragon doesn’t believe that Agnieszka’s brand of magic could have any effect. Only after several attempts does it become clear that his way of using magic is more intellectual and book based, while Agnieszka’s is more emotional and intuition based. As the threats from the Wood become greater, it’s clear that they need to find a way to work together. One terrible day, when the Dragon is called away to deal with a crisis, Agnieszka receives word that her village is being threatened as well. When she discovers that her dearest friend Kasia has been taken by the creatures of the Wood, she risks everything to rescue her. Now she needs to find a way to free her friend from the Wood’s influence, even if such a task has always been believed to be impossible.
The rest of my review is really rather long. TL,DR – this book is great, you should read it.
