A stand-alone fantasy book.
Publication year: 2018
Format: Audio
Running time: 17 hours, 56 minutes
Narrator: Lisa Flanagan
Miryem is the only child of a Jewish couple. They live in a small country town. Her father is a moneylender but he’s very bad at it. He lends money but doesn’t have any luck getting the money back. The people he has lent money to grow wealthier but claim that they can’t pay back. Meanwhile, Miryem and her parents are cold and hungry. When Miryem’s mother falls ill, Miryem has had enough. She starts to collect the money and won’t take no for an answer but threatens to call in the authorities. Finally, they get some money back. In time, Miryem’s business starts to flourish. When one farmer can’t bay back, Miryem orders his daughter to come and work for her.
Wanda’s father is a violent drunkard. To her horror, her father starts to plan how to marry her off for couple of jug of booze. Working for the moneylender and his daughter is a way to avoid that. Also, she slowly starts to see that some families actually love each other. She’s smart and her biggest motive is to avoid a beating from her father. She has two brothers.
Irina is the only child of a Duke. The Duke married her mother because he thought she had magic and would give their child magic, too. Unfortunately, the Duke got an ordinary daughter without any special looks. For most of her life, Irina has been shut away dreading her wedding day.
The whole country is threatened by the Staryk, creatures of snow and ice. Winters are getting longer and harvests poorer. The Staryk claim the animals in the forest and hunt anyone who kills them. Whenever someone gets gold, the Staryk will come to his house and steal it.
One day when Miryam is coming back from her grandfather’s place in the city, she boasts that she can turn silver into gold. The Strayk hear her.
The first part of this story really drew me in. Miryam is a compelling main character struggling with her family and with the townspeople. The encroaching winter is making everything harder.
Miryam is the first-person POV character. She works hard for her family and makes herself cold and hard because she knows that if she allows one person to not pay, the rest won’t pay either. That happened with her father. Her parents are concerned about how cold she has become. She meets occationally her mother’s parents who live in a big city. Her grandfather is a rich moneylender who despises her father because of her father’s softness. But now Miryam has made her grandfather proud.
I was surprised when Novik switched to another first-person POV with Wanda without any warning. Wanda is a more tragic figure with her abusive father, five dead siblings, and dead mother. At first, she isn’t close with her two brothers but they grow closer during the story.
Irina is also a first-person POV. She knows that the only worth she has is with a marriage alliance but her plain looks don’t give her much hope in that regard.
The POV characters changed without warning and they were all in first-person. However, each of the first three contributes to the story. Unfortunately, three other first-person POVs are added later and I didn’t care for them. They were distinctive enough that I didn’t confuse them but I’m not sure if they were needed.
Still, this was an entertaining story. The first half worked very well for me but the second half dragged with the added POVs. The magic feels like a fairy tale rather than logical, modern fantasy magic. For me, it worked very well. The Staryk are terrifying creatures but in the end, they were somewhat humanized.