Wanda’s mother and the children her mother carried, only to lose them, are buried under a tree at the edge of the Staryk forest-a tree with magical properties, which Wanda believes contains her mother’s spirit. The first is Wanda, an impoverished girl with an abusive father. Of course, Miryem desperately fears either outcome.īesides Miryem, there are two other major POV characters. If she fails, she dies, but it she succeeds, he’ll make her his queen. But because she cannot bear not to profit from her labor-after all, her father’s propensity to do this brought her mother to death’s doorstep-she demands to know what the Staryk king will give her in return.įurious, the Staryk king replies that he’ll require her to turn his silver to gold twice more. The rest, she gives back to the King of the Staryk. Miryem gives half the gold she earns to the jeweler. The Staryk have been known to turn people to ice, so a frightened Miryem takes the magical silver to the city of Vysnia, to Isaac, a jeweler, and Isaac, like a man possessed, makes the silver into a ring, which he then sells to the Duke of Vysnia. Soon after, Miryem’s house is visited by the Staryk, and she finds a bag of silver on her doorstep. Only then does she notice that the Staryk road is close by. One day, while riding in an open sleigh with her mother on her way home from her grandfather’s house in the city of Vysnia, Miryem boasts to her mother that she can turn silver into gold.

The Staryk road is icy and it moves, sometimes running very close to the village, other times more distant from it. There is a road that runs near Miryem’s village, called the Staryk road, which belongs to the Staryk, an elven-like people who live in a parallel land unreachable by mortals. Miryem has to harden her heart to do this, because the winters in Lithvas are harsh and have been growing harsher. Eventually, when her mother sickens and the family can’t even afford a doctor, Miryem goes to collect on the villagers’ debts. Miryem Mandelstam, a Jewish girl from an impoverished money-lending family (her father is a terrible moneylender), lives in a small village. Janine: Spinning Silver, Naomi Novik’s standalone follow-up to the Nebula-winning Uprooted, is a fantasy novel set in a Lithuania/Latvia/Russia-based world, a land called Lithvas. Sirius, Jennie, Jayne and myself review Naomi Novik’s Spinning Silver with reactions that run the gamut from “Loved it!” to “Couldn’t finish it.” We hope you’ll enjoy our review. I believe this is our first four-person review here at DA.

Janine A Reviews / A- Reviews / B Reviews / Book Reviews / D Reviews / DNF Reviews #ownvoices / being true to oneself / Eastern Europe / joint review / Judaism / magical powers / moneylender / winter / YA fantasy 19 Comments NovemJOINT REVIEW: Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

Naomi novik spinning silver review