Someone is slowly poisoning the tsarista, and when Baba Yaga infiltrates the royal palace in order to investigate, she finds that larger, darker forces are at work and are manipulating Ivan the Terrible. Now she must figure out a way to stop them before the entire empire collapses.
The Witch and the Tsar by Olesya Salnikova Gilmore is a spellbinding historical fantasy that injects Russian myth and folklore into a very tumultuous time period: sixteenth century Russia.
Right off the bat, I’ll say that this is a very different spin on Baba Yaga that portrays her as a more benevolent daughter of a nature goddess, not the childeating hag of legend. Here she’s stripped of her moral ambiguity and nuance and she felt like a much more one-dimensional character to me.
In fact, I actually found Koshey (an immortal without a heart) and Marzanna (the goddess of death and winter) to be far more compelling and convincing characters.
Overall, I enjoyed getting to see the inclusion of so many Slavic gods and folklore figures in an English book, but this was definitely not my favorite interpretation of Baba Yaga.
Thank you, Netgalley and Berkley Publishing Group, for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Book Details:
Publication Date : September 20, 2022
Publisher : Berkley Publishing Group
IBSN : 0593546970
Pages : 432
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