Reviews tagging 'Murder'

L'Hiver de la sorcière by Katherine Arden

20 reviews

sn8man's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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valpyre's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

i love ded grib. i would die for ded grib.

cws for animal death, child death, suicide.

god, this was such a bittersweet experience. it was a stunning conclusion to a trilogy i never wanted to end. i'm still thinking about vasya and what adventures she will be going on after this -- taking care of the lake, going to the sea, perhaps even back to her childhood home.

i cried a lot at the start of this, understandably. the grief and despair and panic that saturated much of the first half of the book was palpable for me -- i was agonized over the loss and also that vasya just had such little time to grieve. and then when she was safe at the lake, ded grib's eventual and steadfast faith in vasya had me in my feels. 

vasya coming into her magic was so satisfying -- i was so curious throughout the first two books as to when that would happen. also learning and getting some answers as to vasya's heritage was so fun, even if tragic.

konstantin had me feeling actual rage -- this guy sucks! i did think his and the bear's relationship was very interesting though. when i saw i was only about halfway through the book at a very climactic moment with the bear, i was so intrigued. i like that the relationship with the bear and morozko (and the rest of the chyerti) wasn't just good vs. evil. i think the story was stronger for it.

also, vasya and morozko. i love them, i want so much more of them. i so enjoy how much they care for each other and it's not easy, and they both feel so complicated about it, but they feel it deeply, and they always find their way back to each other.

arden's writing, as always, captivated me. the details of the world never truly overwhelmed me, and i've always admired how she weaves and holds the more magical parts effortlessly with a society more familiar (at least to me) to a reader. the dry humour throughout the book was also a delight.

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thebankofbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0


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aksmith92's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Thank you, Katherine Arden, for writing a wintery and blustery book so I can sit in my warm house while it's cold and snowy outside and read my little heart out.

The setup: Vasya needs to go into hiding. The Girl in the Tower, the second book in the series, left off with those in Moscow in a rage after a fire nearly destroyed their home, and they believe a witch to be the culprit. Vasya is now left with one goal only: to care for her family. Her brother Sasha, her sister Olga, and Olga's daughter Marya are all in Moscow, piecing together what happened the night before with Vasya, the frost demon, and Kaschei.

However, those in Moscow want someone accountable for their suffering, and Vasya is an easy target. We follow Vasya as she faces many obstacles, including an angry mob, a vengeful demon, and a forgetful ally. She feels the weight of not only Moscow on her shoulders but all of Rus' and her beloved chyerti - the spirits she has called family her whole life. Can she bring together her people of Rus' - those who vehemently believe in the one God, and those of the spirit world, who seem to fade the more people forget about them and move on to another religion? Can she keep her family safe from the Tatars, those trying to take the rule of Rus'? The world seems to weigh heavy on Vasya's shoulders with these questions, and we watch her continuously battle for peace, not only for those in her country but for herself.

What I loved: Katherine Arden is a phenomenal writer to me - her work is unique, poetic, and her version of atmospheric. She takes 14th-century historical Rus' customs and somehow integrates them into her writing, both from a prose perspective and a literal historical take (one battle scene near the end is essentially a retelling of an actual battle in 1380 Rus' - read the author's note at the end, it's pretty lovely!). The intersection between fantasy and historical fiction continues to amaze me, and it is one of the most vital reasons why I can't help but feel this book is so fantastic.

As typical in this series, I loved Vasya and her strength, resilience, and grit. While the poor thing went through it in this book (even more so than the others), she was incredible. She was strong, powerful, and intelligent. Yet, she was imperfect and flawed. She had to continue making incredibly challenging decisions and understood that only some things would always work out. I think that is what I loved most about this book: Vasya learned from those around her, her environment, and herself to make better decisions in the future instead of just ~always knowing~ what to do, like other fantasy books I have read. I loved her character and what she tried to do for both the spirit world and Rus'.

I also thoroughly enjoyed many of the other characters - Sasha, Olga, Morozko (I'm glad we dove a little bit deeper into his character on this one, albeit I was still itching for more!), the Grand Prince Dmitrii, and I just loved Polunochnitsa (Lady Midnight) and the Bear. I had no intention of laughing during this book because it seemed so bleak and dark, but Polunochnitsa and the Bear truly helped provide (very minimal) comedic relief and were much more layered than I had anticipated (especially the Bear). My favorite secondary character was Ded Grib, the chyerti, a lil mushroom. Konstantin continued to be a unique, morally grey character that I also learned to enjoy, even if he was the worst. He was complicated, and you couldn't help but empathize with him.

Somehow, Arden did a brilliant job of making all characters nuanced and beautiful while juggling two plots without losing anything. I was so impressed by how much Arden could put into this under-400-page book because it packed such a punch, but it wasn't overwhelming. I just loved it. And somehow, like the first two, I read this under some snowy skies - something I didn't think would happen in early March, and I read this through Libby.

I'm a sucker for some political intrigue which was why I enjoyed the second book in this trilogy so much, but I liked this one even more because of the magical elements in it - less politics, more chyerti. I was impressed that Arden could do both so well.

Anything that could have made this a 6-star read? While I rated this a five because of Arden's beautiful ability to intertwine so many interesting plots and characters and the overall unique storytelling of Russia's history and Russian fairytales, this was imperfect, and others may have some criticism for it. For one, 90% of this book seemed to have no hope. Anything wrong that could happen seemed to have occurred, even if there were a few quick wins in the plot throughout the process. It was dreary. I swear that Vasya had eight broken ribs throughout this book and plenty of ample scars and concussions. It was hard to read because it just felt so BAD. Because of this constant dread, I felt the book read just a bit choppy, especially in the middle. 

However, I had a blast with this and shed a few tears at the end. While sad, there was finally a dash of goodness and hope, and the ending was quite fitting. I look forward to reading more from Katherine Arden in the future!


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mary_stormageddon's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

This was so close to being a 5 star read for me. If it hadn't slowed down a bit about 2/3rds through, it would have been. This is the best book in the series, and I will be recommending it to any and everyone. 

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andra_mihaela_s's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

 From me, The Winter of the Witch gets 5 stars!

This series encompasses everything I want in folklore inspired fantasy, and this final book...is just perfect 🥰

After the events in The Girl in the Tower, Moscow and it's people are looking for someone to blame...and this is all you need to dive into this #magicalworld again!

CW: witch hunting, mentions of slavery, war, death, horror elements, cruelty and death of animals, weaponized religion, extreme discrepancy between genders, plague, etc.

I won't try to dissect this final installment as I usually do...instead I'll let myself ramble about what comes to mind.
Obviously, my #rating reflects my belief that this book is close to perfect.

It opens with strong repercussions for our MC, and it goes to give you blow after blow of flawless writing, top notch atmosphere and amazing pacing!

I really felt that the pacing and atmosphere were just right for each scene. As most of the action takes place at midnight, I will poetically describe this novel as a dream of lost memories...

Coincidently, the background music for this series matches my description : Memories by @fludjy, creator of the yt channel EternalDepth...you're welcome and happy listening 😉

Back to our story : important parts are driven by individual character growth, powerful emotions, consequences, political repercussions, supernatural and human elements.

With this being said...my favorites are as follows : Vasya, Morozko, Konstantin, Sasha, Medved, Pozhar,Lady Midnight and Marya.

I love every part and every character, so...that list isn't complete...

Characters :
Say what you want about Konstantin...and yes, his greed and hate is awful..but I couldn't help myself and cried 😭...maybe that's why I love Medved as well...

Solovey...cried and eventually came to peace with it...

Morozko....perfect portretization of Winter...every time he was on the page I felt I the middle of a forest at midnight.

Sasha...great brother and man...now I'm obsessed with his real life counterpart 😅

Vasya...well...she grows with EVERY SINGLE PAGE 🥰...as she should!🥰...I'm soo happy I met her...that's all I have to say..

As I said above Medved came to be dear to me...maybe as I saw his connection with our MCs...and how lonely eternity is...chaos is life, as winter is eternity.

Let's switch it up and say a few words about the action : I really loved how Katherine Arden moulded her historical fantasy with Russian folklore and actual historical events...I was there at Kulikovo..and I cried 😅

Even if I didn't mention Dmitry Ivanovich as a favorite.. His role and the perspective he offered the reader completed this magical story with the necessary elements of the real world!

Favorite scenes: the pyre , everything up to the Lake and there🤭, Kulikovo, at the edge of the lands of winter, at the campfire..all of them😅🤷‍♀️🤭

This is it! Please read this trilogy and lose yourself in a winter Midnight😌...don't forget to stop by the Lake😉 

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basil_touche's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This book certainly fulfilled the expectations I had from the previous book. Arden's writing style flows best in this final installment of the Winternight Triology, where chyerti and man alike join forces to protect their home. Chyerti appear much more in the plot here than last time, with the introduction of Midnight being a fascinating way of introducing more of Russian folklore (I was particually fond of Deb Grib, love that he was insistent that he was Vasya's first ally) and a new means of transportation for the protagonist, though not an easy one at first.

I have to admit though, I didn't really care for the romance between Vasya and Morozko. Their relationship felt underdeveloped for most of the novel but as characters I felt that they were still great. It just felt to me that there wasn't much build up to it. 

I was surprised when they defeated Medved and the narrative still went on, however I quite like that Vasya freed Medved to assist her in fighting the war. He casually tries to make her lose her mind but they do have a somewhat begruding comradeship by the end (Medved's sly comments at everybody that made me smirk a fair bit).


There were some things that I felt were too quickly explained and others where I wished there were more details about but overall this is a fine conclusion to the triology.

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simp_librarian's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I loved this series. Book 3 had a lot going on and I got a little bogged down by it, hence the four stars instead of five.

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lisa_m's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book was the perfect conclusion to the trilogy! It truly got better and better. I really liked the first book, loved the second and this one was just amazing.
I don't think I understand every theme that was explored in this book so I won't even try to analyse it. I just read this book for pleasure so I didn't make notes or anything. I can say that there is definitely loads of things to analyse and think about though.
I loved the way the myths were mixed with real events and people. It just feels like an alternative universe.

This series is officially one of my all time favourites. The writing is amazing, as is the storytelling. The characters range from good, to horrible, to amazing, to very morally ambiguous. The exploration of good & bad and if there even is such a thing in the first place was done so well. This book had a twist I truly did not expect. After the 3rd big chapter I thought everything was over (because in every other fantasy book, that is how the story ends), everything that came after was just so unexpected and amazing. I can't say more without saying too much and spoiling the book so I won't. This is truly a series you should know as little as possible about before reading.

Also I was surprised by how fresh this book felt. I have read so many fantasy books by now and I can enjoy a book while still realising how tropy and cliquee it is. This book felt like something new and exciting though.

I can only highly recommend this book! Especially if you are interested in russian folklore :)

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thewildmageslibrary's review against another edition

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4.5

One thing I really love about this series is that there's not really any time gaps between books. Bam, you're right back where you left off. In this case, "in a pickle".
I absolutely adore Vasya's growth, especially in this book. Can't say much without spoilers, so just read these.

CW: same "it's set in the 14th century, so" as the others

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