My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Very solid fairy tale riff. I enjoyed the characters and the plot of the killer Wood, but I found myself a little frustrated with the main character–Agniezka’s impulsiveness didn’t seem to get much better through the course of the book after things went wrong from her acting on it. She had a full emotional life, and it very much drove pretty much all of her choice making.
Her romance with Sarkan was very much backgrounded rather than foregrounded, which was fine.
Enjoyable if you have strong feelings about themes of hearth and home, and how they impact our choices, or like fairy tale retellings that riff on Baba Yaga and country vs. court life.
Confessions of a Curator, Editor, Geek 