Recent Reads: Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

Ah, Naomi Novik does a wonderful job of taking fairy tales for inspiration, and changing all the things you know, but still with a fairy tale hint.

Spinning Silver has a hint of Rumplestiltskin, the Snow Queen and others I don’t want to spoil, all wrapt up in a Russian style setting, with cherries in tea, Russian sounding terms of endearment and so much snow.

Miryem and Irina do the best for their families, one the daughter of an unsuccessful money lender, and the other the daughter of a duke. They have a lot of danger, sacrifice, worry, flame and snow to overcome.

I really enjoyed this book, and it feels in the same realm as Uprooted because they are both books with fairy tale basis with twists.

This is currently in the GoodReads Choice Awards for 2018, and it’s up for best in fantasy! If nothing else, the awards are good for having a look through for new ideas on what to read!

Personally, I feel conflicted about the GoodReads Choice Awards. They are great, but having looked through them, I’ve read only a couple of books that are up for awards, and I feel like it’s a popularity contest at that point, as if choosing to vote for the book that I’ve read is saying it’s the best, when I’ve not read the competition.