Whenever there is a new T. kingfisher book coming out, I have to pick it up for she is one of my favorite authors. I was thrilled to get my hands on an arc of this and immediately had to read it. Unfortunately, it’s not one of my faves but falls somewhere in the middle. The issue that I had with this book is that it gets really bogged down by the descriptions of the magic system. Towards the end I found myself really not caring nor fully understanding. Initially, when the magical elements are presented, it starts out on a much smaller scale and the reader is able to understand what is going on. However, as the plot thickens, it becomes more complicated and that’s where I had issues. To be honest, I think it kind of took away from the storyline and didn’t need to be .

The pacing was not what I wanted it to be, and there were times where I was super invested in what was going on and other times where I found myself skimming towards the end.

What is is about you ask? We are following Healer Anja who focuses on finding antidotes. She has had a 20 year career in her town and prefers her work to town gossip or people. She has a satisfying life and she does not want for anything else. When the king comes to her and requests that she follows him to the palace to see about his daughter Snow she obviously cannot say no to him.

Hands down the best things are Javier and Anja I think that it would’ve been a stronger book if instead of having the whole silver world, we instead focused on the Anja and the antidotes in her town. I realize that some of the things would have to have changed because Javier is a king guard but it would have made for a smoother and more enjoyable book. Thanks so much to netgally for the digital copy. All opinions on my own.

Hemlock and Silver by T. Kingfisher is a fantastic fantasy retelling with just the right touch of romance. I was immediately drawn in by healer Anja, who specializes in poison. Her expertise and steely determination make her an unforgettable lead, and I loved watching her step outside her comfort zone to save Princess Snow.
The story gets off to a strong start when a desperate king begs Anja to determine whether his 12-year-old daughter, Snow, is suffering from poison and if so, how to cure her before time runs out. As Anja begins her investigation, she uncovers a dark alternate universe accessed magically through mirrors. This mirror world adds an ominous, urgent feeling to the story

Working alongside Anja is her steadfast bodyguard, Javier, with whom there’s a touch of romance. Their teamwork not only propels the investigation forward but also adds warmth and a pleasant dynamic to the unfolding adventure.

While the narrative starts slowly as the world is built and quickly hits its stride with sharp, complex has high stakes, intricate magic and a richly imagined narrative.

Thank you NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for the advanced reader copy. This is my honest review.

T. Kingfisher has once again written a delightful, whimsical yet dark fairytale retelling that's so imaginative yet grounded with realistic characters I fell in love with. There's always such a since of realness to her stories because her characters feel like genuine people making genuine decisions. And this fairytale retelling manages to be fresh and fast-paced, with suspense that kept me reading late into the night.

The author worked her signature magic again with Hemlock & Silver, a dark, earthy, and wonderfully off-kilter reimagining of Snow White that balanced gothic intrigue with a dash of grim humor and a lot of heart.
Healer Anja was a delightfully grounded protagonist—fiercely intelligent, pragmatic to a fault, and so deeply committed to her craft that she regularly poisoned herself in the name of science. Her voice brought a refreshing sharpness to the fairy-tale landscape, and I loved how Kingfisher let Anja’s compassion shine through without softening her edges. The slow unraveling of the mystery surrounding Snow was handled with a deft hand—tense but never overwrought, weird but never confusing.
The supporting cast also delivered, from the grumpy, honorable guard who grew on me like moss to the gloriously self-absorbed talking cat who practically demanded his own novella. The mirror realm? Deliciously eerie. It oozed danger and decay, and Kingfisher’s descriptions were both beautiful and unsettling—exactly what I hoped for.
The pacing in the middle could have been a bit better—it meandered slightly as the story transitioned from court intrigue to magical mayhem, but the payoff in the final act made it all worthwhile.
Darkly whimsical and surprisingly tender, Hemlock & Silver was a twisted fairy tale that managed to feel both fresh and timeless.
Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

T. Kingfisher never disappoints! Hemlock & Silver is a Snow White retelling told from the perspective of a woman who has been hired by the king to find out who is poisoning his daughter, Princess Snow. I’m not familiar with the fairytale Snow White and Rose Red but I think the book pulls from that story as well.

Anja has devoted her life to studying poisons since she was a teenager, and now in her mid thirties she is one of the foremost experts in the field. Still, when the king asks her to discover what may be slowly killing his daughter, she is at a loss. There is nothing suspicious anywhere in the castle. Then at night, alone in her room, she catches a glimpse of a reflection in her mirror. Something not in her room when she turns around. Is the exhaustion and frustration getting to her? She certainly does not believe in magic, so there must be a logical explanation, right? Yet nothing physical seems to be harming Snow…

T. Kingfisher excels at building complete worlds filled with characters who feel real even when their roles are small (I love Grayling so much.) The dusty desert country with animal Saints and spirit boxes to memorialize the dead is no exception. Without spoiling anything, it also contains the fantastical almost but not quite horror elements that I love from her books as well.

T Kingfisher is a master storyteller . She takes familiar fairy tale elements and weaves them in to a story with poison , likeable characters in their thirties and mystery.

I love everything T. Kingfisher writes, by my heart holds a special place for her fairy tale retellings. This one is excellent. It's got the classic elements of Snow White there, but the twists are so imaginative and creatively done. I loved that our FMC wasn't some 17 year old who can do anything, but rather was older and a capable woman, but who felt so real cause she still had flaws. This book was captivating. I can't wait to see what she comes up with next!

I'm a big fan of fairytale re-tellings and this Snow White retelling was not only cozy in voice but incredibly unique!

I love all of T. Kingfisher's fairy tale retellings, but this one is a fresh and interesting take on snow white, with interesting features, an intelligent protagonist, and Snow getting hers back in the end.

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

This was a delightful retelling of Snow White. Anja is so sweet and I love that she has a one track mind when it comes to her craft that she doesn’t notices the social niceties that would help with her dealing with the king’s court or how the king’s staff is sort of prodding her to be the new Queen which she has absolutely no interest of being not to mention Javier.

Javier, be still my heart. And Grayling is the funniest little beastie there is.

I also loved the whole mystery of Snow’s condition and the actual cause, very clever though mildly terrifying.

My gripe is the pacing. It was really slow in the start and middle but well worth it by the end. Enthusiastic 4 stars.

I adore T. Kingfisher and will enthusiastically read anything they write, so this was no exception.

I'll say, I did find this to have a bit of a slower start than some of her previous works---nonetheless, when it got its legs, it really took off. Also (and this might speak more to my state of mind when I was reading this so keep that in mind), I found the idea and descriptions of the mirror world confusing. Again, maybe it was due to an imagination struggle and I'll leave it at that.

That said, the characters are charming and witty, with Kingfisher's typical wry humor. And who couldn't love a one-eyed cat with no business being so sassy. This is a whimsical, cozy and slightly dark fairy tale retelling that is basically an ultimate comfort read <3

T. Kingfisher's Hemlock & Silver was absolutely engrossing! Her reinvention of the Snow White story with a bit of Through the Looking Glass thrown in kept me sucked into this dark fairy tale. Absolutely loved Hemlock & Silver's weaving of magical intrigue with the politics of court and uncertainty of what else there might be to the world: magic, unknown scientific discoveries, maybe even love.

Thank you Tor Books for the Advanced Reader copy!

I have always loved T. Kingfisher's writing. Her wit shines through the pages. Yet never have I felt more seen then in this book. I did not realize I even wanted representation until Anya jumped out of the page at me. A tall, larger woman who is 35 and obsessed with finding answers to "why is there no cure for Hemlock." This and her father bragging about his healer daughter to the King brings Anya to Witherleaf, where she must put herself to the task of figuring out how and who is poisoning Snow and hopefully find a cure, before it's too late. This is a fun adventure with a mystery that unravels the more Anya discovers.

There is one section where, when I read it I cried: "Because it was what the voice of despair whispered all the time, whenever my guard slipped enough to listen. I was too big, too loud, cared too intensely about things that no one else did. Of course he’d find me revolting. Some days I found myself revolting."

I was able to see Anya and know this isn't true about her. It gave me the space to think about how I say this very thing to myself, and that it's not true about me either. Thank you T. Kingfisher for continuing to write about women who don't fit in, and show that they are just as brave, just as lovely and just as deserving.

I wanted to read this because 1) T. Kingfisher 2) retellings are pretty cool sometimes and 3) I'm biased towards anything vaguely fantasy or horror-esque. And you know what? I'm not regretting my choice.

H&S has a strong opening chapter. In the very first scene, Anja, our protagonist, is speaking to the king. He very quickly lets her know the queen is dead, he killed her, and he needs Anja's help saving his daughter Snow. She hesitantly agrees. Shenanigans ensue, her world is turned upsidedown, etc etc.

Anja's awkward in a pretty relatable way. She's also a master of poisons and antidotes, which isn't relatable--but quite fun! As always, I'm happy to have a main character in her 30s and thriving.

H&S does lose momentum (imo) after that first chapter. I really just wanted Anja to hurry up and leave after accepting the king's request. Keep up the sense of urgency, you know? I did really appreciate getting to see Anja in her element early on, though. Example: caring for the man in the temple who ended up dying. It further set the tone and SHOWED us what Anja can do rather than simply being TOLD.

The book picks up again once they finally start traveling to the castle. I appreciated Anja questioning people and doing various tests to see how Snow might have been poisoned. The trial and error.

I'm a huge fantasy lover, it's probably my favorite genre, so I was excited to see the mirror-world. Unfortunately, it feels a little boring? At least in the middle act.

I love Grayling. If cats could talk, I imagine a lot of them would sound like this little beast. Totally unhelpful except when he wants to be. Ready to cause frustration or chaos at any given moment. In his defense, I feel like Anja causes HIM frustration, too, so at least they've got something in common.

Ok so this is a personal preference type of nitpick, but I'm not a fan of "maybe he's gay" in a straight-passing romance. To Anja's credit, she did think "maybe it's me" first, but there was a whole tangent on how sometimes someone being gay is subtle and... as a queer person who reads a lot of queer fiction, I'm just really tired of this trope in M/F romance.

That being said, I did like the romance in H&S better than I did in Nettle & Bone. Which is shocking considering the fact that Javier & Anja don't spend meaningful time together in the first half of the book. But things really pick up in that regard in the back half and I enjoyed their dynamic a lot. Keeping in mind that the romance is a sub plot rather than the main point helps, too. I don't think it adds much to the story but it doesn't detract from it either.

Overall, despite my critiques, I think H&S succeeded in what it was trying to do and I'd definitely recommend it, especially to fans of T. Kingfisher.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!

#IndigoEmployee

My Rating: 4.25 stars!

T. Kingfisher can do no wrong in my eyes. I am now also terrified of mirrors.

I loved this book so much, Anja was hilarious throughout with her obsession with poison and her lack of social understanding. And the premise of the Snow White retelling, it had just enough to check the boxes and yet at the same time felt entirely its own story. I honestly wasn’t sure if she was going to be healed in the end or not. Not to mention, I’ve never seen a Snow adapted to be kind of bratty, rather than the perfect, angelic princess she always seems to be. But this is a twelve year old princess with some trauma, of course she’s a bit of a brat.

My one complaint is that it felt almost too fast. As soon as things started to make sense, it all seemed to be happening. I would have loved another hundred pages of the story, and maybe even another chapter at the end with the king returning, some sort of normalcy after everything rather than where it all ended. Still, I loved the book and am so grateful to have gotten to read it early.

Also, Ursula (can I call you Ursula?), is there a strange, possessed/demonic/not at all normal animal in all of your books? I’m not against it, I’m just asking.

Kingfisher never disappoints. Somehow, she has a new take on Snow White— a miracle in a deluge of pseudofeminist fairytale retellings. It’s freaky and surreal, true to the original stories. The cast of characters is well developed, especially the women.

First, thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I've read many (though not all) of Kingfisher's books, and they been hit-and-miss for me, but this is definitely one of my favorites from her. It's a little bit above a 4, rounded down.

This is an extremely loose take on the Snow White story. I'd say "inspired by" Snow White, rather than any kind of actual retelling. I absolutely loved the main character Anja, who is essentially the medieval equivalent of a chemist, and studies poisons in order to create treatments, antidotes, and cures. She has the mind of a scientist and is always far more interested in questioning and learning than anything else. She can be extremely blunt and is extremely practical - the exact opposite of your traditional fairy tale damsel. Her character is one of the best things about the book.

When Anja is personally requested by the king to help determine if his daughter's mystery illness is due to poisoning, she accepts, but is aware that she is likely to fail. I liked that the king wasn't some power-mad villain, just a man genuinely concerned about his daughter's safety. Even though he swears Anja will come to no harm if she fails, Anja knows her failure is still likely to lead to her family being shunned by others for her inability to help the king. It's that kind of book - people are just real people, not monsters, but reality still exists and negative consequences still happen even if the most powerful people involved don't want them to.

When Anja arrives at the manor house where the princess resides, her investigations turn up a very surprising cause for the illness. To say too much more would be spoiling it. Suffice it to say, all is not what it seems, in more ways than one. Kingfisher has a good way of spinning things in such a way that the "good guys" and the "bad guys" aren't always who you expect them to be. She also has a real flare for macabre images. I don't know where she comes up with such creepy stuff, but she's great at it.

Admittedly, this dragged a little in the middle, as for a bit it feels like Anja's investigation wasn't going anywhere. Up until then it was a 5 star read. However, it eventually picked up the pace again and came to satisfying ending and is definitely up there with A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking and A Sorceress Comes to Call as my favorite Kingfisher reads.

Thank you to netgalley and Tor Publishing for the eARC in exchange for an honest review

I will preface this by saying I’m hesitate to read any Snow White retelling because the Disney animated adaptation is very nostalgic for me.
But as a devoted fan of all things T. Kingfisher I was screaming when I read the summary of Hemlock and Silver. I thought “Was this written just for me?”

Kingfisher is the queen of cozy horror and fantasy. With every book of hers I’m in awe of just how talented she can blends those genres together.
With her usual wit and charm she writes her humorous heroine in a way that’s always relatable.

I savored every second of this book and I didn’t want it to end.

5 stars

Thank you to netgalley and Tor Publishing for the eARC in exchange for an honest review

𝗔𝗥𝗖 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 💫

📚 𝓑𝓸𝓸𝓴: 𝓗𝓮𝓶𝓵𝓸𝓬𝓴 & 𝓢𝓲𝓵𝓿𝓮𝓻

✍️ 𝓐𝓾𝓽𝓱𝓸𝓻: 𝓣. 𝓚𝓲𝓷𝓰𝓯𝓲𝓼𝓱𝓮𝓻

🗒️ 𝓟𝓾𝓫𝓵𝓲𝓼𝓱𝓮𝓻: 𝓣𝓸𝓻 𝓑𝓸𝓸𝓴𝓼

𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰:

Hemlock & Silver is the first book that I have read by T. Kingfisher. This book is a dark reimagining of Snow White. I will say, I was not a fan of Snow White as a child, but this version had me hooked within the first two chapters.

Healer Anja is a remarkable character, filled with an abundance of knowledge, in search of cures for poisons. She is then called upon by the King, in hopes of her to find out what is wrong with his daughter, Snow. All that they know is that it’s a possible poisoning, but how/why? Is there a cure? What will happen to the princess?

As the story progresses, there are so many plot twists that leave you on the edge of your seat. You are enticed to turn each and every page, finding the problem along with Healer Anja.

This was a 4 star read for me and I highly recommend for others to read it as well. Thank you NetGalley and Tor Books for giving me the opportunity to ARC this!

I was able to get this through NetGalley. Anja is a woman would has spent her life studying and researching poison. When the king shows up unannounced in her workshop, she is given the task of solving a mystery regarding Snow, the king's daughter. This is an fun retelling of Snow White. it is well written and a quick read.