Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher
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.
For the Reading Challenge(s):
N/A
The Reason
I love T. Kingfisher’s stories and I was excited about this one as well.
The Quotes
“Learning just makes you aware of how much there is to learn.”
“There is a crazy-wild delight that comes over you when you discover something new, something extraordinary. If you try to share that and people look at you blankly, it’s crushing. But if there’s someone else there to say really?! and take fire with enthusiasm alongside you – well, that will keep you going for a long time.”
“I was a child with a child’s attention span. Many adults think this is no more than a butterfly’s, flittering from thought to thought, but they have forgotten how, in some children, it is as sharp and pointed as a stiletto. Mine was focused now.”
“I had succeeded in pushing off my fears until later. Now later had arrived, and I wasn’t somehow magically equipped to deal with it. Poor planning on my part, clearly.”
The Narrator(s)
Jennifer Pickens. It was mostly fine, but I really didn’t like the way she expressed the vocalizations of the main character. It detracted very much from the story for me.
My Thoughts
I absolutely love how original this retelling is! I love the way Kingfisher uses the classic elements; the apple, the mirror, the poisons, and so on, and created such an imaginative story out of it. I also loved the whole romance story between Anja and Javier; their chemistry jumped off the page very early in the story and I was rooting for them the whole time!
I love most of the characters; Javier for sure, Grayling so much, Lady Sorrell too, but I had a hard time liking Anja although I’m not sure if that’s because of her character in itself or if it’s because I really didn’t like the way the narrator portrayed her. I also didn’t really like Snow, I didn’t feel connected to her character at all.
There were some things I didn’t like about the story; like how they replaced the word “sex” with “uhh”, which felt so cringy to me, and I also felt like it was a cop-out to make Anja so knowledgeable in poisons but so ignorant with healing in general. It makes sense that she may not be an expert in other specialties of medicine, but it’s hard to believe she doesn’t have a general understanding of healing at all. Still, I mostly loved the story despite the minor issues. It’s not one of my top Kingfisher books but I loved it anyway.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
