This is T. Kingfisher’s take on the Snow White story, and as always, I quite enjoyed her take. But it’s also not my favorite of hers (that might still be Nettle and Bones for these stand alones). There was something with this one where it felt like we stalled in the middle or forgot the main point of the story and got too distracted. Another review on Goodreads stated something along the lines of this being a novel where the author got a bit too interested or invested in their own world building. I had been struggling to articulate the issue and this perfectly summarized it/helped me see what I was trying to say and understand.
Anja, an expert on poisons, is brought along by the king to help figure out his daughter Snow’s illness but at certain point in the middle, it feels like Anja is more distracted by the magic of the mirror world she discovers and investigating it than she is in understanding the illness. Of course they are connected, so exploring one should eventually solve the other.
There was also a cat side character and a guard love interest that played key parts in this. Naturally, the gray cat with one eye was my favorite and I ended up searching Kingfisher’s social media of her gray cat that partially inspired him (not too much luck). Overall, I quite liked how the mystery all came together so it’s definitely worth the read, it just wasn’t my favorite of hers.
