Whilst an urban fantasy retelling of Baba Yaga sounded a great plot premise, the book unfortunately didn't deliver. It had the weakest characterisation I've seen in a while, people quite hard to believe and rather bloodless, by which I mean about as exciting as unripe papaya.

How can you make a story based on Baba Yaga folklore this insipid? By overdescription and overwriting. If you're more into describing and describing (that initial couple of chapters with Nat in the bus on her way to Y.A.G.A were interminable) instead of infusing life and emotions and complexity into your characters, this is what you get. Natchenka is such an aimless ninny for so long that you wouldn't even care if Dima killed her by accident or just because he could, and de Winter (the Yaga figure) is hardly more than a bitchy old woman for the most part. And don't ask me about the other characters, because I struggle to remember their names already.

The story just goes on and on until it just . . . ends. Yes, just ends, and one is left wondering what was all that about because the overdescription dragged you around for a bus ride to a destination you can't even care about because the capacity to care about the characters and story wasn't built from the beginning. It's almost taking a joy ride on a bus without the joy.

At least the Russian is correct and the surnames are duly gendered as is done in Russian, small mercies.

Thank you to Tor Publishing for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.fairy-tale-retellings fantasy have-reviewed125 s Montzalee Wittmann4,794 2,301

Spring's Arcana
By Lilith Saintcrow
This book was a long but wild ride! A young woman's mother is dying in hospice and she send her to a strange woman for help. The woman agrees to help but she must bring the item back to the woman. Her mother said to bring it to her. The woman is sending a man with her. He said he will take the item when she gets it and kill her. Wow! I don't think I would bother with the trip!
Seems her mother was cruel to her all her life. Never loved her. Her mother stole a heart, the heart of the guy going with her! From the strange lady!
The adventure is full of magic and danger! Once on the trip, she has a motorcycle that turns into a horse. But then it was a bit unwilling to go back to the ranch after she found one of the pieces she needed. The characters are great, unique story and fantasy, and enjoy the suspense.
It was an enjoyable read but it just stopped. Not a cliffhanger but it just stopped. I really, really hate that. It would have been a 4 star book to me before that.
I want to thank NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read this fun and exciting book.science-fiction-fantasy20 s Rachel (TheShadesofOrange)2,493 3,779

2.5 Stars
I picked up this book hopeful that I would find an underhyped favourite. Unfortunately I was sorely disappointed. I was hoping this one would be more fantastical, but really the major issue for me was the characters.

In my opinion, urban fantasy depends on strong characters more than any other fantasy and these ones fell flat. The setup of the sick parent should have had an emotional pull but it did not. I really struggle with one, finding myself very disconnected from the story.

Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.2023-books fantasy review-copy14 s Bogi Zweiundvierzich161 8

In these troubled times, everything that seems related to Russia is eyed with mistrust. But the fact remains true that Slavic folklore holds a great deal of fairy tales and characters, especially of the dark variety, to be raw material for countless stories. Shall we find out if this holds true for dark urban fantasy roadtrips, as well?

The promise of the story seems simple enough: Natasha's mother is sick, terribly so, and she sends her to visit a woman heading a corporation named Y.A.G.A. - and while that woman's name is given as Ms. de Winter, her employees refer to her as Baba. Let's just say it's not very subtle, and I assume Baba Yaga is probably the most notorious character of Slavic folklore. (In this case, she resides in a skyscraper, not in a hut, and I somehow doubt the skyscraper has chicken legs.) I'm also suspecting a cross breed with the summer and winter court of the Fae.


Baba Yaga, also known as the black witch

******************************
Read this review on the blog - the layout is better.
******************************

The writing style is truly show, don't tell; and the overall tone is gloomy. I've never read a simple bus ride that was so gloomy, and you get the feeling the novel is starting to set out on heavy and dark notes from page 1. (That means if you don't have a knack for darker things in life, this novel might not be for you.) But the style of also exhausting, because Lilith - we need to talk about that later on - constantly uses mental pictures. A lot of them, and some really, well - let's call them really creative ones. Sometimes more than one per sentence. Let me elaborate:

*****
He stared out the window he was seeing raccoons along the back fence instead of just a snowed-under postage-stamp yard mom kept trimmed, weeded, and neat until the snow came and obliterated all trace of green each year.
- a murder of mental images
*****

Mental images are a great thing if they are able to paint a picture for the reader, but even when they are good, they should be used sparsely, so not to exhaust the reader. I felt rather overwhelmed at times by all the comparisons that were drawn into the writing, and the worst thing is that many of them made no sense to me. While I get that postage-stamp yard reference in the last sentence (I would probably have called it a postcard yard instead), I absolutely have no clue how people stare when they're seeing raccoons on the fence. Never witnessed anything that, and there's just nothing similar I could draw upon to come even close. I've seen people staring frightened into thunder and rain, or being afraid of lightning, but raccoons along the back fence? I've got no clue.


Had this man seen raccoons along the back fence? We'll never know.

I'm also getting heavy American Gods vibes right from the start, just in this case more Russian gods (well, Neil Gaiman did feature Slavic deities in his novel, as well). But I think that Lilith's prose is trying too hard to make the jump to American Gods.

There's those comparisons, trying very hard to sound cool, all the while making no sense. And just by judging from the pen name, the author is also trying very hard to look cool in the context of the occult. Lilith Saintcrow might be, as a friend of mine put it, a really "punch in the face" pen name. I agree.

And that's a pity, because that forced coolness is looming the shadow of a hyper exaggerated titan, swinging an axe as dark as the exhaust pipe of a 57 Chevy, over an otherwise interesting plot that now looks it has seen too many raccoons, despite the fact that there are no raccoons in the story. (Sorry for that sentence, but I had to make a point.)


Raccoons. Never trust them.

The story underneath is sometimes hard to follow, but full of very interesting characters. Most outstanding are Nat - the heroine - and her mother as well as Baby Yaga. (I'm inclined to describe both of them as antagonists.) But if you want, you may see them as the same person, kind of. Taking the Wiccan nature of the author's pen name into account, they could very well represent the maiden, the mother and the crone. That's actually in line with some of the Yaga myths out there.

What is a lot harder to follow are the many characters and places and their standing in the world. A lot is said about that, but nothing explained - and sometimes I wish the "show, don't tell" approach wouldn't be so strict here. , I don't mind a little telling, you know? Just a little more context, please?
Autor del comentario:
=================================