Fiction Reviews
Hemlock & Silver
(2025) T. Kingfisher, Tor, £14.99, trdpbk, 358pp, ISBN 978-1-035-05268-4
“It’s Snow White, Jim, but not as we know it.”
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…
I have to admit to being a fan of T. Kingfisher, although not much of one I suppose, having only read her two “sworn-soldier” novellas – What Moves the Dead (short-listed for a Hugo Award) and What Feasts at Night (also short-listed for a Hugo), concerning the adventures of weary sworn soldier, Alex Easton, their loyal friend, and batman, Angus, and believe it or not, Beatrix Potter’s aunt, Eugenia, who luckily happens to be a mycologist, that is, an expert in fungi. The first novella riffs off “The Fall of the House of Usher”. The second one is totally original, and they are great reads, check them out, but Hemlock & Silver is my first Kingfisher full-length novel, so how did that go?
Well, here we have Kingfisher’s retelling of Snow White, but from a totally different angle as Anja’s skill with poison and her reputation as a healer, brings her to the attention of the king, mainly thanks to the boasting of her father. The King has recently lost his Queen and his eldest daughter in very unusual circumstances – no spoilers here, but blimey, it is a bit of a shocker. Now his daughter Snow is ill, possibly by poison. Thus, Anja agrees to go to the palace in order to save the young princess, but despite taking a very scientific approach to this problem by searching Snow’s room, noting her daily routines, her eating habits and interviewing the palace guards and staff, as well as encountering Snow’s pet, a talking, narcissistic cat called Grayling (easily the best character in the book), she can’t find any evidence of poison. More alarmingly when Anja sees Snow eating a strange-looking apple and enquires where she got it, she ius certainly not prepared for the response she gets as it looks like the source of Snow’s malaise seems to come from a series of mirrors that allows entry into a dark, alternative world, something totally out of Anja’s experience and her rational, scientific approach to things.
The opening part of the novel highlights Kingfisher’s knack of creating quirky characters and world-building and scene-setting, unfortunately it is very slow, although we get to know a lot about plants and poisons in these chapters, even if it is a bit repetitive. However, the poison strand of the novel is quickly jettisoned when Anja discovers the world behind the mirrors.
Having read the two sworn soldier novellas, there seems to be more than a passing similarity between the Eugenia Potter and Anja characters. Both are older, are experts in their field, funny, quite self-sufficient, and possibly open to some romance in their life – in the sworn soldier books it is between Eugenia and Alex’s batman, Angus; while here, it is between Anja and palace guard, Javier. Although, the main difference is that in the novellas, Eugenia is a minor, supporting character, while here, Anja is the lead character who drives the story through her first person, stream of consciousness narrative. In a different reality – ours, sadly, Anja with her strange ways, interests, bluntness, and self-sufficiency, would probably be condemned as a witch.
Once we get past the slow start, the novel really picks up with some great twists, a smattering of romance, humour, strong world-building, more talking cat, and some icky mirror creatures. Fans of Kingfisher’s other work will undoubtedly enjoy this, but those expecting the more traditional Snow White story and all of its familiar trappings, isn’t going to find them here.
Ian Hunter
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