Rise of the Firebird

Rise of the Firebird (Firebird Faire Tale series #3)- Amy Kuivalainen

BHC Press

Release Date: March 21, 2023

Rating: 📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Traveling from the battlefields of Skazki to the Underworld of Tuonela, Anya and her companions encounter the vicious dark goddess Louhi and gain two magicians, the mad hero Kullervo and Eldon Blaise--apprentice of Merlin himself.

As devastating secrets of history and the heart are revealed, Anya must fight the darkness within herself and rise up to be a symbol for the Neutral rebel army that rallies under the banner of the firebird. Ready to restore the balance at any price, the final battle of the three armies will shape the worlds forever in this exciting finale of the Firebird Faerie Tales series.

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The end of the Firebird series has definitely left me with a book hangover that will be staying with me for awhile. Like the first two in the series, (Cry of the Firebird, Ashes of the Firebird) Kuivalainen's amazing world-building abilities are on full display here as she takes Anya and crew through multiple worlds in true faerie tale quest fashion. They meet new allies, annoy new powers, and search for the powerful weapon that will help them defeat Baba Yaga and Yanka once and for all. 

Over and over we're reminded that power can be seductive and it is easy to slide to darkness. That seems to have been what happened with Yanka and Baba Yaga and while everyone keeps saying Anya looks like Yanka, and she certainly has some moments of anger, nobody worries about her becoming dark as much as I expected. Maybe because she worries about it, maybe they figure the Firebird won't let it happen? I was surprised it didn't come up more, especially since as the book goes on the idea of revenge comes up more. 

There was a lot going on in this book, almost too much for one book. Kuivalainen drags us all through the emotional wringer, even before the final battle. I was so attached to all the characters that even figuring a major final battle wasn't going to go well, losing some at the end made me cry. There were more loose ends left hanging in this book than I expected, very unusual for Amy Kuivalainen, which makes me wonder if there will be a spin-off with one or two characters in her next series to answer some of the questions she left us with at the end. And I have to admit I wasn't comfortable with the 'raising of the spring' ritual- felt like a trigger warning beforehand wouldn't have been out of place there. But maybe that's just me?

Overall Rise of the Firebird continues the beautiful blend of urban fantasy and Russian/Finnish mythology the series is know for. I do definitively recommend reading the first two books before reading this one, since this picks up right where books 2 left off.

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

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 

Cry of the Firebird

 

Cry of the Firebird (Firebird Faerie Tales #1)- Amy Kuivalainen

BHC Press

Release Date: October 14, 2021

Rating:📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: A firebird is reborn on the borders of Russia, a gate to a world of monsters and magic is breaking, and only a reluctant, untrained shaman stands in the way of a flood of supernatural darkness...

Anya is still reeling from the death of her grandfather when a strange encounter with the Finnish God of the Dead changes her life forever: Her family has been guarding the gates to the Russian otherworld on their farm for centuries, and she’s the new gatekeeper. Worse, if she doesn’t awaken her magical abilities and assume her new role, the gate will break, unleashing a flood of monsters and dark gods into their world.

As Anya struggles to make sense of her changing world, she can’t deny the strange encounters. She’ll need to accept her fate and work with the legendary firebird if she hopes to survive—and protect humanity.

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Amy Kuivalainen (Magicians of Venice series) proves her world building abilities are as strong as ever with her new series, Firebird Faerie Tales. In this first book we meet Anya, a young woman who has been having a rough time. She's trying to make a go of her grandfather's farm in Russia after his death but her biggest success is in emptying vodka bottles. Then one day Tuoni, the Finnish God of the Dead appears to explain the facts of her life to her: her family has long been gatekeepers between the mortal world and a magical world and if she doesn't wake up and learn how to use her magic and control the family's gate within the next six months it will fall apart and allow all kinds of otherworldly creature free reign in the human world. Although on the bright side, magic users will probably brutally kill her for her magic way before then. Good luck. He also gives Anya a stone that he says has been in her family for centuries and is now hers to care for. Anya would love to pretend this is all a vodka fueled dream except that night the stone breaks and a firebird hatches out of it. Who then turns into a man. And that is the most normal thing Anya experiences for awhile.

Cry of the Firebird throws Anya and the reader into the deep end of a world that mixes "normal" and magic in intriguing blends. Fortunately, you don't need to know anything about Russian or Finnish fairy tales to understand, let alone enjoy, the story. Along the way Anya gathers unlikely friends and allies as she tries to learn enough about her magic to not get herself or anyone else killed and prepare to close her family's gate- especially as it becomes clear that the gate is unravelling faster than Tuoni had first predicted. Like in the Magicians of Venice series, Kuivalainen gathers an ensemble cast with radically different abilities, characters, and reasons for being together that works really well when a description of them suggest they wouldn't. Here the cast is larger and more varied and we get to know more of them right away, romantic (or at least sexual) interests flare faster, and fight scenes are epic. Light and Dark are not quite what you think they are and there is always a price to be paid.

Kuivalainen takes traditional myths and turns them into something uniquely her own in this new and engrossing novel. I already can't wait for book two in the series and am hoping someone will discover how brilliant all her books would be on Netflix.

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