I didn't think it was possible, but Novik's Spinning Silver was just as brilliant as Uprooted -- maybe even better in some ways. Her latest novel is a loose retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, set in a country a lot like late-medieval Lithuania and plagued by ice-cold Staryk who are keeping spring from arriving and a fiery demon who has possessed the tsar.
The main protagonist is Miryem, the daughter of a Jewish moneylender who's too kind-hearted to do his job; fed up with starving, she takes over collections, hardening her heart to do so (cold, both literal and metaphorical, drive the plot). She soon discovers she has a talent for turning nothing into silver, and silver into gold, which attracts the eye of the Staryk king. But the story is not just about her; Wanda is a young Christian woman who begins working for Miryem as a way to avoid grinding poverty and her abusive father, and Irina is a nobleman's daughter forced to marry the terrifying tsar. Seeing these three characters find ways to survive and then thrive as they take hold of their lives was the very best part of the book.
This is a deeply moral story, teasing out the ways faith, prejudice, fear, love, duty, and gratitude color actions both ordinary and grand. Novik has a knack for starting out with fairy tale cliches and then gradually complicating everything as her characters struggle to do what is necessary and what is right. And it's thrilling! So much happens in this novel I had difficulty putting it down every night.
I can't wait to see what Novik writes next.
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