The Bear and the Nightingale is a lovely blend of fantasy and fairy tale, with a strong female lead facing not just the challenges of society, but those of nature and myth, too. As with other books built on Slavic legend, there was a bit of familiarity to those of Ukraine, with a slight difference, like the tartness of a crab apple to a Pippin plucked fully ripe from the tree. I was singularly surprised , but not disappointed, when the elements I expected or anticipated didn't play out. Arden did a good job at capturing the ugliness of crowd mentality in the townspeople, depicting personalities of the jealous and disappointed, relating the interplay of that which we delegate to fantasy with real life, and showing different sorts and strength of love. Overall, I enjoyed this book and will look for more by this author.

Thanks to LibraryThing and the publisher for sending this copy my way.

Tags: 2016-read, alternate-history, creatures, early-review-librarything, first-novel-or-book, fantasy, i-liked-it, magical-realism, will-look-for-more-by-this-author, advanced-reader-copy

Sending this off to one of my most favorite people on earth, mother to two other delights (and married to a 3rd) though I've not yet met the last 3. This must be remedied.

To the finder of this book:

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My dear friend sent this and another book to me. I always enjoy receiving a parcel from her! I am hoping she will be seeing all four of us next year!

Update December 26, 2016
I enjoyed this blend of fairy tale and its historic setting. I was anxious to see if the twists would turn the way I imagined they would. I loaned this to my mother-in-law who also enjoyed it but mentioned wishing she had known there was a glossary in the back. I didn't have too much trouble with names or terms as you can pick up quite a few from context. I've seen that the author plans another book with these characters, but I'm not sure I had enough attachment to them to read their further adventures.

Welcome to BookCrossing, a unique community of book lovers, sharing their libraries with the world. This book is now yours to read, enjoy, keep or pass on to another reader. The BookCrossing ID, which you entered in the "Enter a BCID" box on the website, is unique to this copy of this book. If you make a journal entry (either anonymously, or as a BookCrossing member) all previous readers of this actual book will be notified by email, and can follow the book as it travels. BookCrossing is free to join, completely confidential (you are known only by your screen name and no one is ever given your e-mail address) and a heck of a lot of fun. If you do want to join, I'd love it if you would use ALRESCATE as the name of the person who referred you.

Be on the lookout for other books left in the "Wild"!