4.5 stars
Spoiler warning! This is book 2 in a trilogy, and the story pretty much follows on directly from the ending of the previous book. This book, while very good, doesn’t really stand on its own, you would do much better to start at the beginning, with The Bear and the Nightingale.
There are roving gangs of bandits travelling the countryside around Moscow, pillaging and burning the villages and abducting young girls. Prince Dimitri sends his cousin, brother Alexandr, affectionately known to his family as Sasha, to investigate. Sasha has been out travelling the land, and brings an injured and exhausted priest he found on his travels to his sister Olga’s household for tending. Neither of them know about Father Konstantin’s connection to their family, and are therefore shocked when the priest tells them of the strange events surrounding their father’s death and their sister Vasya’s disappearance and likely demise.
As Sasha believes his sister to be dead, he’s certainly not expecting to find her riding hell for leather, pursued by bandits, disguised as a boy, with three young girls clinging to her for dear life. Reunited at the monastery where Sasha and Dimitri spent part of, where the men are resupplying while out searching for traces of the bandits, Sasha is forced to lie to his cousin about Vasya’s identity, presenting her as his younger brother Vasily. As they return to Moscow, Olga has no choice but to support Vasya’s deception either, as their sister has chosen to flout all the conventions of society. In a world where women either marry and get locked up in terems, or go to convents (and get locked up there), Vasya’s refusal to conform to the gender norms is unacceptable and eventually gets her (and her family) into more trouble.
It will come as no surprise to any reader that our brave and non-conforming heroine’s deceptions are eventually revealed (in a very public and rather breathtaking scene). As well as the jealous malice of Father Konstantin, she’s up against a new antagonist in this book. The man behind the raids on the villages is eventually revealed, and he has an unexpected connection to Vasya’s family and ambitions that could cause problems for Prince Dimitri, Sasha, Olya, as well as Vasya herself.
Full review on my blog.
