Springs Arcana by Lilith Saintcrow, I was dubious about this book but thought to give it a try, unfortunately it failed for me, though I do think others will enjoy it. Thank you for giving me a chance with this book.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this book. It's got a lot of great elements: magic, demons, Russian folklore, action, good characters. However, the writing is buried in so much flourish and overdone style that it makes the story difficult to follow at times. The story itself is good, but the author gets in their own way with the overdone writing style. There's a lot to like in the story if you can get past the way it's written.

Nat Drozdova’s mother is dying. And Nat will do anything to save her. Even making a bargain with the mysterious Ms. de Winter. A bargain that sends Nat on a chase to recover a magical artifact and pulls her into a hidden world of magic, divinities, archetypes, and demons. Nat slowly realizes that everything she thought was real, was a lie. Even her identity.

The author has a lushly descriptive writing style with detailed world-building. She overlays our reality with a world where divinities and archetypes exist feeding on the belief and dreams of normal people.

Nat is quickly thrown into this mysterious world but the revelations about it and her mother are definitely a slow burn. You have to read this because you enjoy the exquisite journey, not because you want all of the mysteries revealed at once.

I enjoyed that Russian folklore was center stage. Baba Yaga needs to be in more books!

Be prepared for a cliffhanger ending!

The premise is interesting but the author's flowery and overly descriptive language is the opposite of what I appreciate in good writing. It tired me and made finishing the book a chore.

I read most of this author’s books a few years ago, and I was excited to see a new series by her. I read this, and I don’t know how I feel about it even a few days later. I am not a fan of over flowery language like taking a page to describe something or using multisyllabic words when “regular” words would do. I can appreciate it, but I like to move the plot along and feel more emotion from the characters. I also felt that as a reader I could have used more information upfront to figure out what was going on. I don’t mind not having an info dump, but I struggled with the language, words, and adding not knowing what was going on at the beginning made it a struggle I shouldn’t have. However, towards the middle and end, when I figured out what was going on and become used to the word use, I came to appreciate everything. This is by no means a terrible book. It’s more of a preference for what you want as a reader. I can recommend this for others, but even after writing this review, I still don’t know how I feel about this book. Will I read the second one? Probably. I was provided a complimentary copy which I voluntarily reviewed.

I went into this book without expectations. I find the characters to be bland and lack personalities, even though there were a lot of descriptions. They felt fictional instead of me connecting with any characters. The overly descriptive nature of this story is overwhelming. I see this as a mimic of George R.R. Martin's overly descriptive nature but not done well. It isn't enjoyable. I do not need an analogy of how the tree swaying resembles something else. That, to me, are just words to fill the pages without contributing to the story's content, characters or setting. The overall story did not grab my attention on top of all the other annoyances.

Thank you to Tor Publishing Group, Tor Books and NetGalley for letting me read this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This ARC was given at no cost from Netgalley.com and I am providing an unbiased opinion.

I have read Saintcrow's work before (Dante Valentine series) and have enjoyed her writing style. I was happy to see her coming out with a new series. As it states above, this does feel like American Gods vs Baba Yaga, who is in fact a major character in the story. But it mostly centers around Nat, who appears to be the offspring of the 'Spring' persona of the Baba Yaga myth/lore. Of course, she has no ideas of what power she has, or will have, or how things go in the "magic realm" that she has never been exposed to until now. Add in the death-sick mother (whom the MC loves) that sends her on a mission to recover something stolen.... Yeah. Gets pretty interesting.

Definitely a good start for a new series, with a different accounting of the Baba Yaga legend in a modern day setting. I don't foresee any romance happening in the series, but who really knows aside from the author. I have a few ideas of what may happen in the next book, and will anxiously await the next in this series.

2.75 stars.
Spring's Arcana is a pretty decent urban fantasy read, if not quite giving the reader anything new. The author is very skilful in creating a wonderful atmosphere of disconnect between the every day world of skyscrapers, traffic and winter weather, and the sidelong world of gods, demons and magic that Nat is blundering her way into, so that her experiences and story becomes more credible.
The actions of the characters are sometimes lacking in plausability, but the relationships between Dima and Nat, and Leo, are reasonably well drawn. Other characters are not quite so credible, but this is only the first volume of what will presumably be a trilogy, so I assume the author is pacing herself.
On the whole, this is extremely derivative of Gaiman's American Gods, both in plot and style, but there is some really good descriptive writing in there, and Saintcrow does manage to give the book a great sense of the "other", which many other writers in this genre don't quite pull off, so kudos for that.
My thanks to Netgalley for the ARC, all opinions are my own.

I don't like this author's writing style very much. Try as I might, I could not get over that while I was reading. I wanted to love this, because that synopsis? Amazing. However, I felt very middle-of-the-road about this one, mostly because of the writing style. It was pretty fast paced, when I could get completely into it, and I did like the characters, but the overall narrative voice sunk it for me. I do know that fans of hers will absolutely love this, and I am very excited to get physical versions for my library. All-in-all, I didn't hate this but I didn't love it.

There's some really good descriptive writing in this novel, but the rest is such an incredible rip-off of Neil Gaiman that I'm surprised the publisher is allowing this to go out into the world. Better have a good defense lawyer handy. In addition, the plots make no sense, people do things that make no sense, and the whole thing is a mess.

I'm not a huge fan of Lilith Saintcrow's storytelling style, but I REALLY REALLY wanted to like this, yet I really really didn't, and for the same reasons I simply don't enjoy many of her books, I don't like her writing style. That said, I'll be getting this for our library and I know it will be a hit for her fans!

I requested a digital copy in order to sample the prose on my phone (since I don't have a eReader) before requesting a physical copy for review. My review will be based on the physical ARC I read (if I qualify)

Spring's Arcana is book 1 in The Dead God's Heart Series by Lilith Saintcrow
And I must say I was very impressed.
My first time reading this author's work and honestly it was very entertaining.
Nat was a very nice character to read about. I was so intrigued by her and her story, I couldn't help but keep flipping the pages.
Lilith Saintcrow's writing was amazing. To be honest at first I wasn't so sure, but once I got in the groove of the story it took off like a bat outta hell.... And next thing I knew it was 11pm and thought "a couple more" which of course turned into a lot more pages.
Her writing and characters hooked me and had me wanting to absolutely nothing but to finish this book.
The plot and pacing of this book is wonderful.
Overall, a truly enjoyable story, I'm already excited for The Salt-Black Tree Book 2 coming in August 23'

"I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Books for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.