Jesse’s Reviews > The Winter of the Witch > Status Update
Jesse
is on page 250 of 372
Like dang the Konstantin subplot ends in a really tidy way and feels really earned, too, even what passes for compassion. And I’m all, no way!! This book ain’t even close to over! And then, ohhhhhh yeaaaaah, the Tartars.
— Dec 16, 2025 03:04PM
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Jesse
is on page 300 of 372
okay considering the arc went from thinking that she had to contain the bear to realizing that the bear was potentially an ally, the story quickly moving from his plot to sew chaos to working on the side of Russia makes a lot more sense.
— Dec 17, 2025 12:55PM
Jesse
is on page 200 of 372
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At a certain point I am realizing that the overall story arc of this series is more or less mimicked by The Wolf and the Woodsman, with an emphasis on the history of the Jewish faith in the Slavic countries, just to a much less satisfying effect. It’s knocked my experience with Reid down a peg.
— Dec 16, 2025 02:13PM
At a certain point I am realizing that the overall story arc of this series is more or less mimicked by The Wolf and the Woodsman, with an emphasis on the history of the Jewish faith in the Slavic countries, just to a much less satisfying effect. It’s knocked my experience with Reid down a peg.
Jesse
is on page 150 of 372
Arden’s prose is so awesome and there is no encumbrance by unneeded peanut galleries and pithy banter. Vasya looks for the winter king and finds her own family’s history in the process, looking down long memories of midnight. She is intelligent, terrified, and not very much in love if at all anymore with the winter demon, and she can see it all in the memory of his old ways of power.
— Dec 16, 2025 01:02PM
Jesse
is on page 100 of 372
Arden is such a great writer. Of all the Russophilic works that have come out that I’ve read—Shadow and Bone, Ava Reid’s, and Arden—I prefer Arden by a wide margin. I think that Reid’s Wolf and the Woodsman speaks to that Jewish heritage that is completely absent in this historical fantasy, which is commendable, but the rest of this prose is so much stronger.
— Dec 11, 2025 05:49PM
Jesse
is on page 50 of 372
No peace!! This book starts out right where The Girl in the Tower left off, with enormous as well as immediate ramifications for Vasilisa. There is also a bit of a return to form as we have a familiar pairing of villains, just operating on a much larger stage than Vasilisa’s hometown. I want to see Konstantin get his comeuppance SO HARD. The whole mob violence is just brutal.
— Dec 11, 2025 02:16PM
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rated it 4 stars
Dec 17, 2025 04:47AM
On second thought the execution of this novel feels a little rushed and schizoid, but it’s been a little while since I read The Girl in the Tower and this is a direct continuation of its plot. It’s just, Vasilisa’s quest takes such a big part of the story and I know that it all occurs during Midnight but the story outside is literally on pause, so the impact of the Bear feels minimized
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