Witch & the Tsar

 The Witch and the Tsar- Olesya Salnikova Gilmore

Ace/Penguin Random House

Release Date: September 20, 2022

Rating: 📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: As a half-goddess possessing magic, Yaga is used to living on her own, her prior entanglements with mortals having led to heartbreak. She mostly keeps to her hut in the woods, where those in need of healing seek her out, even as they spread rumors about her supposed cruelty and wicked spells. But when her old friend Anastasia—now the wife of the tsar, and suffering from a mysterious illness—arrives in her forest desperate for her protection, Yaga realizes the fate of all of Russia is tied to Anastasia’s. Yaga must step out of the shadows to protect the land she loves.

As she travels to Moscow, Yaga witnesses a sixteenth century Russia on the brink of chaos. Tsar Ivan—soon to become Ivan the Terrible—grows more volatile and tyrannical by the day, and Yaga believes the tsaritsa is being poisoned by an unknown enemy. But what Yaga cannot know is that Ivan is being manipulated by powers far older and more fearsome than anyone can imagine.
 
Olesya Salnikova Gilmore weaves a rich tapestry of mythology and Russian history, reclaiming and reinventing the infamous Baba Yaga, and bringing to life a vibrant and tumultuous Russia, where old gods and new tyrants vie for power. This fierce and compelling novel draws from the timeless lore to create a heroine for the modern day, fighting to save her country and those she loves from oppression while also finding her true purpose as a goddess, a witch, and a woman.

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In The Witch and the Tsar, Olesya Salnikova Gilmore does for the infamous Baba Yaga what Madeline Miller did for Circe, what Genevieve Gornichec did for Angrboda, and what Natalie Haynes' upcoming StoneBlind promises to do for Medusa: allow a traditionally "villainous" woman to take control of the narrative and tell her own story. Her own story is not that of an evil hag, but a good woman: half goddess, all healer, turned out by villagers and vilified when Russia turns towards Christianity. So she lives in a hut with chicken legs out in the woods and waits for peasants to come to her for help under cover of night, but no longer lives among them. She sees her mortality as a weakness and tries to ignore it, and to stay out of human affairs. But one day Russia's tsaritsa, Anastasia, Yaga's old friend and now wife of the tsar, comes to her. Anastasia is being poisoned by a hidden enemy and Yaga agrees to save her, even if that means going to Moscow itself. Soon she discovers the danger is much bigger than just to Anastasia's life, that gods and immortals are meddling with humans and nature and Yaga must decide if she is brave enough to risk everything to protect the people she has come to love.

The Witch and the Tsar may be Gilmore's debut novel, but you would never know it. Beautifully written with the confidence of one who might be on her tenth novel instead of her first, The Witch and the Tsar is crafted so that the reader appreciates the complicated lives of each character- none are one dimensional, throw away, figures. You feel sorrow for Yaga's enemies even as your heart breaks for the choices Yaga must make, this is a triumph in fantasy storytelling. Russian history and mythology weave together into an intricate world and beautiful creation that you feel as if you, the reader, are a part of. The sights and sounds, the smells, the food and clothes, the woods and city streets, all come alive and draw you in.  It is clear from the beginning that Gilmore loves the characters she has created, the ones she has drawn from history and mythology as well as her own imagination. Whether or not you are familiar with Baba Yaga and Ivan the Terrible before starting this book, expect surprises both beautiful and heartbreaking in the most unlikely places. Gilmore shows us through her characters that in the darkest places we can find our true selves and our strengths, and that even immortals can discover something new- in the world and in themselves- after hundreds of years. A message of hope for us all.

I defintely look forward to future books from Olesya Salnikova Gilmore and will be recommending The Witch and the Tsar to my friends who enjoy fantasy and feminist retellings!   

  

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review