Spinning Silver is a remarkable fantasy book that at once seems so familiar and yet so foreign. Loosely inspired by Rumpelstiltskin, this adventure goes far beyond the traditional story and delves into a world so richly built that you never want to put the book down. This book absorbed me entire. The writing is as clever as the characters. This is a must-have for any fantasy collection.

I loved Uprooted, so when I saw that Naomi Novak had written another fairy tail-esque novel I got pretty excited. And I'm pleased to say that I was not disappointed in Spinning Silver at all. Spinning Silver and Uprooted are not set in the same world, though they have a similar feel. Spinning Silver is set in a Slavic-type world with Russian style mythos and a Jewish community. Spinning Silver takes the story of Rumpelstiltskin and runs away with it. T

he book starts out with a prologue about how the story as we know it isn't true. How the story originated from the miller's daughter accusing the Jewish moneylender of being a witch and getting out of her debts. Thus begins the tale of Spinning Silver. Miryem's father is a moneylender. But not a very good one. So while the town prospers, her family suffers. Until Miryem has enough. She becomes cold enough to do what her father cannot- collect the town's debts and turn her silver into gold. In doing so, she attracts the attention of the Staryk, ice fae, who's never ending winter is encroaching on her world.

Novik is dazzling once again with this title. I had not expected the gift of so many courageous heroines, but Novik certainly offered them to me, open-handed. I was captivated from page one, as if magical forces had enthralled me; Even now I can't stop smiling. Please do yourself a favor and read this book! Highly Recommended.

My birthday weekend treat to myself was to read my ARC of this book, which isn’t out until July, and honestly I could not have picked a BETTER birthday weekend treat for myself, because this book had just about everything I loved in it! It’s set in the same universe as Novik's Uprooted, I believe, but doesn’t seem to be related to that book otherwise, except that it is also an interesting mishmash of Western and Eastern European folklore (and Jewish!!). The main character is a young Jewish girl, the daughter of a moneylender, but eventually several other POV characters comes into play, particularly the daughter of a local Duke and a young girl who comes to work for the moneylender's daughter. There are so many great women in here, learning accounting, knitting, fighting demons—you know, the usual stuff. Anyway, I don’t want to give much away, but this book was moving and funny and action-packed, and had so much good family and friendship stuff. I just really loved it. A.

I tore through this in a single day, flipped back to the beginning, and read it straight through again. I loved Uprooted but I think Spinning Silver might be even better. In some ways it's also very similar to The Bear and the Nightingale (fantasy Russia setting, human girl pulled into the war between mythological creatures), but Spinning Silver is completely rooted in Jewish heritage and traditions and it's both tremendously powerful and really unique. Novik manages to balance an initial three different narrators (Miryem, the Jewish daughter of a moneylender who is challenged by the fairy king to turn silver into gold, Wanda, a peasant girl who sees indentured servitude to Miryem's family as an opportunity to escape her abusive father, and Irina, the plain daughter of a politically astute lord who becomes an unwilling tsarina with the help of a magical crown) with the late addition of three more (Irina's nurse, Wanda's brother, and the demon-ridden tsar) and every time the book jumped from one person's head to another's, I was completely absorbed within a few paragraphs even though I was dying to find out what happened to the character we had just left. Fantasy fans, you have a treat waiting for you in July.

Simply excellent! One of those books where, the moment you finish, you rush off to buy everything else the author has ever written.

More than a worthy successor to Uprooted, Spinning Silver is a beautifully crafted novel. Novik skillfully braids together the plots of three women who use their wits and their will to create something out of the difficult circumstances of their lives. Novik's inclusion of Russian and Jewish culture gives the tale a grounded element that makes the fairy tale even more believable.

This is such a beautiful, well written book. The plot is well thought. Naomi Novik doesn't leave anything behind. The characters are fully dimensional even the ones who are first introduced as stock characters are fleshed out.

I adored the characters and their complexity, but I can't put into words how much I loved having such clever, ambitious heroines taking charge of the plot. They had real agency, and found ways to put themselves in positions of power despite their circumstances and it was magnificent. I loved how Jewish culture was such a strong part of this novel and in the end saved the Staryk. The way the Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale was woven into this story was incredibly clever and kept me guessing even though I thought I knew what was going to happen.

I loved Uprooted by Naomi Novik, so I was thrilled that she was tackling another fairy tale. While readable, Spinning Silver didn't captivate me like Uprooted did. It might be that the switching P.O.V between six characters left me not particularly invested in any of them. However, it was an interesting read and I'll certainly be buying it for my library's collection.