Meet a Microgenre: Wintery Fantasies
One of my life’s greatest pleasures are what I like to call “wintery Eastern-European-inspired fantasies.” These chilly, magical books have always swept me into a story set during my favorite season where the world always seems a little more mysterious, and where magic can’t help but seem a little more possible. Here are a selection of some of the classics of this microgenre and also some of my personal favorites. I recommend them with a big steaming cup of something warm (I prefer some mulled cider or hot cocoa myself) and a comfy chair and blanket to curl up in.
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
Most famous for her Temeraire and Scholomance series, Naomi Novik, co-founder of the fanfiction website Archive of Our Own, crafts a standalone story that follows Miryem, the most recent in a line of moneylenders. Her father, however, is terrible at collecting his debts, which leaving their family at the cusp of abject poverty. Miryem steels her heart to claim what her family is owed—and quickly gains a reputation for being able to spin silver into gold. When she boasts of her ability, the King of the Staryk (fearsome fairy creatures who seem to be made of ice) wants her to use her power for his ends—but the two may have more in common than she thought, and she must defeat a force that threatens both her world and that of the Staryk.
This Rumpelstiltskin retelling is gorgeous, complex, vast, and still filled with joy. Reading this while it snows makes you feel even more grateful to be safe and warm inside.
The Bear and the Nightingale (Book 1 of the Winternight Trilogy) by Katherine Arden
Dark, lyrical, and sharped with the biting teeth of growing older, this debut novel is basically the hallmark of this microgenre. At the edge of the Russian wilderness lives Vasya, a young girl growing up where the cold seems omnipresent and the nights are long. She is raised with her nurse’s fairytales, and loves most the story of Frost, a blue-eyed winter demon, and her family always honors the spirits that protect their home and family. But when her father remarries, her new stepmother will not stand for these heretical beliefs. When evil seems to be creeping ever more out of the woods and closer to her village, Vasya is forced to use her particular powers and defy her stepmother to protect her family from the worst of her nurse’s most frightening tales.
Stunningly enchanting, you won’t be able to stop yourself from rooting for Vanja as she tries to transcend what is allowed women and girls in her world.
The Crown’s Game by Evelyn Skye
This is a book I devoured in one day quite a few years ago, and then I promptly forgot what it was called. Imagine my delight when I came across it while talking to a friend about this specific genre! Perfect for fans of Shadow and Bone or Laini Taylor, this fantastical historical fantasy set in Imperial Russia follows two teenagers as they compete for the opportunity to become the Imperial Enchanter, or die trying. Vika can bring the snows and turn ash into gold and Nikolai can see through walls and make structures appear out of thin air. As the last two enchanters in Russia, and one of them needs to stand by the tsar as the empire withstands attacks by the Ottomans and the Kazakhs. The victor of the Crown’s Game becomes Imperial Enchanter and the tsar’s right hand. The loser dies. Even as their magic calls to each other, Vika and Nikolai must fight for what they want most.
A story of family, love, and ambition, this setting will suck you in, leaving you swooning over the characters and story.
For the Wolf by Hannah Whitten
With its popularity driven almost entirely by word-of-mouth reviews, For the Wolf is a dark fantasy debut filled with Eldritch forest monsters and political machinations. In this story, we follow Red, the only Second Daughter that has been born in centuries. Her life has one purpose—to be offered as a sacrifice to the Wolf in the Wilderwood in the hopes that he will free her world’s captured gods. And Red is itching to leave, even knowing certain death is her only fate. As she grows, so too does her dangerous power that she can’t control. If she is in the Woods, her powers can’t hurt the ones she loves—again. But when she enters the Wilderwood, Red soon learns that her world’s legends are all wrong—the Wolf is just a man and her magic can be used for good, if tamed. But if she can’t control her powers, the monstrosities her queendom’s gods have become will soon swallow the Wilderwood—and everywhere else—whole. An exploration of love, loss, and duty, you can’t help but be ensnared by the Wilderwood, too.
The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid
This is another book that I absolutely tore through. With its compelling setting and magic system and its delicious enemies-to-lovers romance, this fantasy story based on Hungarian history and Jewish folklore will leave you wanting more (alas! it’s a standalone). Our main character Évike is the only woman in her pagan village to not have any magic powers. When the King’s Holy Order of Woodsmen come to claim a pagan girl for a blood sacrifice, Évike is offered up readily by the village. On the way to the capital, monsters attack, and all the Woodsmen are killed, except for the one-eyed captain, leaving him and Évike with no choice but to rely on one another. But he’s no oridary Woodsman, he’s the disgraced prince, and decides to work with Évike to stop his zealot of a brother from taking the throne, which would damn pagans and Yehuli alike. Bound together by the shared experiences of being cast out and oppressed, Évike and the prince become unlikely allies and lovers to save their world.
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
I will always sing the praises of this backlist title, which still has my whole entire heart even half a decade after I last read it. Set in Prague, this book follows Karou, an art student with a mysterious past and even stranger friends. She draws monsters that may or may not be real and speaks languages that don’t even seem human, and her blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. She doesn’t know much of her own past, and when scorched black handprints begin appearing on doorways around the world, accompanied by winged strangers who disappear through slits in the sky, she cant help but be entangled in the great mystery of her life. She must also wrangle with being on the cusp of a brutal, otherworldly war where this young student’s cursed love story begins to bloom in this first of a brilliant trilogy.
With some of the most lovely prose and lush world-building I’ve ever read, Laini Taylor is sure to become one of your favorite authors, too.
Egg and Spoon by Gregory Maguire
From Gregory Maguire, most famous for his book Wicked, comes a story that illustrates that precarious tightrope walk that balances the lightheartedness of childhood and the dark dangerousness of adulthood. We follow Elena living in the impoverished Russian countryside whose entire life changes one day when a train arrives in her village containing wealth, food, and a noble family on their way to visit the Tsar, including a girl near Elena’s age called Ekaterina. Their meeting sets off an adventure that involves mistaken identities, an undercover prince, and the famed Baba Yaga of myth. Both a hero story and a series of dreamily painted vignettes, Maguire’s wit is perfectly in sync with boundless whimsy. While definitely a fantasy novel, this story is at its best when it focuses on the deeply human, a little girl longing for a parent, a mother longing for a child, and the shared experience of everyone just trying to make their way in life.
The Witch and the Tsar by Olesya Salnikova Gilmore
While she is mentioned in some of the other books in this list, no story centers the infamous Baba Yaga like The Witch and the Tsar. This reimagined retelling of Baba Yaga from Russian folklore is not the witch you thought you knew—and she’s determined to save Russia from Ivan the Terrible. Described as “wonderfully witchy” by the Genevieve Gornichec (bestselling author of The Witch’s Heart), this stunning debut shows a Yaga who lives to serve her community—helping bring children into the world, healing illnesses when she can. When her dear friend Anastasia, now the tsaritsa, comes to her after being poisoned, Yaga finds herself at the Russian court. While trying to save her friend, Yaga realizes greater powers are at play. She must dig deeper into the earth magic her mother began to teach her and allow herself to be vulnerable in love to save her friends and family and Russia itself from the clutches of evil rulers and gods who think humans are their playthings.
I hope you have fun exploring this microgenre! If you do try any of these books, let us know in the comments below—and if you find more in this vein, also let us know—I always feel like I’ve discovered them all! Happy reading!
