Title: Girl in the Tower
Author: Katherine Arden
Series: The Winternight Trilogy #2
Genres: YA, Fairytale
Publisher: Del Rey
Release: 05 Dec 2017, 25 Jan 2018
Source: ARC
Pages: 363
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BLURB:
The magical adventure begun in The Bear and the Nightingale continues as brave Vasya, now a young woman, is forced to choose between marriage or life in a convent and instead flees her home—but soon finds herself called upon to help defend the city of Moscow when it comes under siege.
Orphaned and cast out as a witch by her village, Vasya’s options are few: resign herself to life in a convent, or allow her older sister to make her a match with a Moscovite prince. Both doom her to life in a tower, cut off from the vast world she longs to explore. So instead she chooses adventure, disguising herself as a boy and riding her horse into the woods. When a battle with some bandits who have been terrorizing the countryside earns her the admiration of the Grand Prince of Moscow, she must carefully guard the secret of her gender to remain in his good graces—even as she realizes his kingdom is under threat from mysterious forces only she will be able to stop.
EXPECTATIONS: I have received an ARC from publishers but it does not in any way influence my thoughts and opinion.
THE WORLD: It is the second book in the series following rather famous The Bear and The Nightingale. As this book is pretty much takes off where the first one ended we are again set in the magical fairytale land of Russia where old gods and dark magic exists. I must say I was looking forward to being again in this world even more than I wanted to know what happens next! The Bear and The Nightingale was the first book that introduced me to this amazing genre and since then I have been reading many books set in old fairytale lands. Therefore I was slightly bit disappointed when we did not get to see as much of magic as in the first book. I mean of course it is expected, in the first book we learned all about the world and it's rule and by now we are as familiar with everything as our own world but still...little part of me would have loved more legends and old stories.
CHARACTERS: Just like in the first book we are still following Vasya as our main heroin. She is now a young woman who has to choose to either marry or go to the convent. Of course if you remember Vasya you already know that neither choice is something she would pick so Vasya ends up pretending to be a boy and set off on the adventure. As Moscow and surrounding villages are being attacked by bandits and little girls stolen Vasya finds herself trying to solve the mystery. After a battle she is invited to the castle where she is supposed to talk to the prince. Except that if you remember both Vasya's brother and sister are in Moscow and that of course becomes a problem because she is still pretending to be a boy. Alright so now let's look at Vasya herself. She is not a child anymore and the choices she makes are also not so small. When she leaves her village she ends up leaving her family behind which of course is nothing easy. She also has to eventually comes to the point as to what she will do next. Adventure and fighting off evil will always be her thing but now that her siblings are there and she is invited by the prince Vasya seems to kinda loose her appear. Not that I don't like her anymore. It's just often I found myself not a biggest fan of what she does. However it was very nice to read about her siblings again.
ROMANCE: Not the center. There is something happening and there are things carried over from the first book but Vasya is still a free spirit.
GOOD: I liked being back into the world. Will always love it and its magic.
BAD: It kinda felt like this book has a second book syndrome. I read first book as a stand alone and it was great but having a second book our after less than a year...I think you can feel that it was written much faster than the first book.
OVERALL: It was great to be back in the world but I wished a little bit more of this book. However as it is a trilogy maybe all the biggest fun is coming in the next book!
What do you think about GIRL IN THE TOWER?
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