Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher
Blurb:
From New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award-winning author T. Kingfisher comes Hemlock & Silver, a dark reimagining of “Snow White” steeped in poison, intrigue, and treason of the most magical kind
Healer Anja regularly drinks poison.
Not to die, but to save— seeking cures for those everyone else has given up on.
But a summons from the King interrupts her quiet, herb-obsessed life. His daughter, Snow, is dying, and he hopes Anja’s unorthodox methods can save her.
Aided by a taciturn guard, a narcissistic cat, and a passion for the scientific method, Anja rushes to treat Snow, but nothing seems to work. That is, until she finds a secret world, hidden inside a magic mirror. This dark realm may hold the key to what is making Snow sick.
Or it might be the thing that kills them all.
Review:
Thank you NetGalley for an ARC of Hemlock & Silver by T Kingfisher. I recently decided I wanted to read more outside my genre (which is typical just sci-fi and fantasy and any variations therein) and figured I’d give a fairy tale retelling a go. I’ve never read one of those, and I’ve always wanted to read something by Kingfisher (though I expected it would be Clocktaur War, in truth).
I was not disappointed. In fact, I loved this book a lot more than I thought I would. I went into it remembering fairy tales from my youth. They weren’t exactly my thing. I wasn’t huge on disney. I didn’t hate those stories, but they weren’t the ones I was pulling up. So I went in expecting a fairly generic retelling with a smidge of creative liberty and little else. I was very wrong. And gladly so. Though I should mention I don’t exactly know the full fairy tale, or at least how it was originally penned by Brothers Grimm.
Hemlock & Silver follows a healer, Anja. Specifically, someone that treats poisons and venoms and similar maladies. She’s not very good with people. Not nearly as she is with poisons. The object of her obsession since she was 12 (which we get a rather endearing flashback for). But then the king arrives, and tells Anja his daughter, Snow, is sick. Gravely so. And he fears it poison. This is, of course, terrible news. What if Anja fails? What will be the repercussions? What if someone tries to kill her to cement Snow’s fate?
All this and more Anja deals with on her journey to Witherleaf, where Snow is staying. She’s been getting sicker and sicker and nobody knows why, not even Anja, until she stumbles upon a magical realization. An apple. Thus begins the fairy tale retelling.
As much as I enjoyed the beginning, it felt its own thing up until that point which was (in my not so great recollection) at least a third, maybe half, of the way through the story. The rest proved to be a retelling with a lot of originality, yes, and I loved it, yes. Though (SPOILER ALERT) there were no dwarves…Sad.
The character work here was phenomenal. With Anja, at the very least. The side characters (save Javier and Scand, the latter of whom is hardly involved in the story) feel quite flat. And of course the talking cat was a lot of fun, but that is expected, isn’t it? I just wish there was a bit more to some of them, especially Snow. And the king and queen. And even one of the other characters that is kind of bad but not really whose name I won’t say. They don’t have much substance, but it is a rather minor point, all things considered.
Mainly because the atmosphere was wonderful. Exactly what you want from a fairy tale retelling. It transports us. To a world that leaves and breathes and feels as genuine an article as can be. Kingfisher’s writing is masterful from front to cover. The story is paced perfectly (for all I wished the retelling started earlier). When there is action, its done very well, though I did wish for a tad bit more. The romance, too, felt genuine and was enjoyable. Thats from someone that does not really read romance at all. Mainly because I do not particular like it as the main driver of a story (which it isnt, here, though it is quite important).
Now for the bad. The story is told in first person POV, but the tense is a MESS. I realized it quite earlier on, and could not get out of my own head as it kept happening, multiple times a page, all the way to the end. Within PARAGRAPHS—not chapters, not pages—the tense would switch from past to present. There were entire passages where it hopped around each sentence. It was exceptionally infuriating and I cannot fathom 1) why it could have slipped through edits or, 2) if it was a stylistic choice…WHY?
I do appreciate the stylistic choices and remixing of the original fairy tale, i.e. a desert instead of a forest, among other things. The “poisoner” was a remix as well, though not a surprising one, I must admit.
Regardless, I did enjoy this one and imagine fans of Kingfisher’s other retellings (or just retellings in general) will enjoy it as well. Hemlock & Silver by T Kingfisher is a fun, heartfelt retelling of a classic we all know (and maybe love?) that was a joy to read.
