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All T. Kingfisher books are a guaranteed good time with fantastical plotting, I'm rating the book four stars because it isn't quite as strong as some of her more recent offerings (Nettle & Bone and A Sorceress comes to call.) Kingfisher returns to her roots as an adaptor of fairy tales with this iteration of Snow White. There is a memorable irascible protagonist and great supporting characters. Cat lovers will especially be pleased.

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4.5
This is a dark fairytale retelling of Snow White that is almost more fantasy than horror. It has T. Kingfisher's signature humor and relatable characters. I really enjoyed it although it wasn't one I could read late at night!

Anja is a healer specializing in poisons and antidotes. She is called to save the princess, who is suffering from a mysterious illness. With the help of a stoic bodyguard and a talking cat, they must venture into a mysterious world on the other side of the mirror to save the day.

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This book was a complete immersive experience, and I loved every second of it. The atmosphere was built so thoroughly and well that I felt like I was on this epic adventure with the characters. I'm obsessed with everything T. Kingfisher writes and this is one of my top favorites. I can't wait for the world to get their hands on this book. Also the romance was unexpected but their relationship and dynamic was genuinely so cute!

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Kingfisher's latest is a slightly horror-tinged take on Snow White, set in a fantasy desert kingdom where the heroine, Anja, discovers a portal to an alternate universe beyond the mirror. Aided by a magical (indeed perhaps godly) talking cat and her stalwart bodyguard, Anja tries to uncover the secret behind the Princess Snow's mysterious illness and, in the process, save the entire kingdom. There's a few monstrous creatures that rely on body horror tropes and, of course, a rather speedy romance (because there almost always is, with Kingfisher).

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Dark, delightful, and full of heart. Maybe my favorite T. Kingfisher yet.

As a longtime T. Kingfisher fan, I had high expectations going into Hemlock & Silver—and this one might just be my favorite yet. It’s technically a Snow White retelling, but honestly, it feels completely original. Familiar in the bones, but transformed into something stranger, smarter, and much more haunting.

“Maybe the point of gods and saints is that they can make the monstrous choices that people can’t”

The real standout in this story is Anja, the female main character who is a poison expert/healer. I cannot emphasize enough how much I loved her. She’s everything I want in a main character—smart, practical, emotionally steady, deeply compassionate without being sentimental, and completely uninterested in performing for anyone’s expectations. She’s a poison expert who takes her craft seriously, tests things on herself with terrifying calm, and is more at ease with death than most people are with small talk. She’s also funny, deeply human, and refreshingly over thirty. And even when the world around her tips into the supernatural, she never loses that groundedness. She doesn’t panic—she analyzes. She doesn't flail—she thinks. I found myself rooting for her with my whole heart.

“Oh saints. I do not need another fetish right now” - my favorite Anja quote of the book.

T. Kingfisher has always had a talent for blending humor, horror, and heart, and that balance is on full display here. The plot creeps up on you, layered and mysterious, with sinister mirrors and shadowy forces that are genuinely unsettling. The pacing picks up beautifully after the first few chapters, and by the end I was fully locked in. And yes, there’s a talking cat with a wildly inflated ego. He’s a perfect menace, and I adored every scene he was in.

There’s also a slow-burn romance that stays perfectly in the background—subtle, warm, and so well-matched. It never tries to steal the spotlight, but when it lands, it lands in a way that feels honest and earned.
I also have to shout out the audiobook. The narrator absolutely nailed the tone of this book—dry wit, eerie tension, emotional depth—all of it. It brought Anja to life in a way that made the whole story even more immersive. I honestly didn’t want it to end.
Huge thanks to Tor and Macmillan Audio for the advanced copy—this was an absolute gem, and I’ll be recommending it to everyone

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T,]. Kingfisher loves taking classic fairy tales and dropping someone sensible into them, and they;re wonderful to read.

"Hemlock and Silver" includes mirrors, an evil queen, an apple, and a stricken princess named Snow, but that's where the resemblance ends. Anja, an expert in poisons, is asked by the king to examine his daughter whom he believes has been poisoned. And, oh yeah, he admits he killed the queen, but only after catching her cutting out his other daughter's heart. That's all in the first chapter.

After that, it's an adventure of mysterious portals, a helpful guard, a talking and sometimes helpful cat, a lot of interesting information on poisons and antidotes, and a powerful lurking enemy who can strike from anywhere.

If you've read Kingfisher, you know what to expect. Magic, humor, danger, death, and commonsense reactions to fantastic events. Once Anja arrives at the castle, things pick up and don't really slow down as the humble medic finds herself driving to save the kingdom.

Well worth the read, but do not think that because you saw "Snow White" you know what's gong to happen. You really don't.

Provided by Netgalley for an honest review.

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Thank you to T. Kingfisher, Tor Publishing Group, Tor Books, and Netgalley, for this advanced reader copy of "Hemlock & Silver" for an honest review.

A new Kingfisher book available? Hands down, something I'm going to run for every publication. Another that happens to be a fairytale retelling with the main character who is in advanced years, happens to be a bit overweight, and also considered spinsterly? I'm here for them FOREVER. Take all my money, and twice that in my love and respect.

This book was a glorious reinvention of Snow White, with twists and turns I couldn't see coming a hundred yards off. I love the blunt, no nonsense of 'Healer Anja,' who is a dab hand at a lifelong stufy of poisons which have often had her singled out as "odd" and "macbre" and misunderstood by others, and frequently frustrated at herself for the way that finding cures is one of the hardest sciences to manage (especially in the time period alignment of this piece). Snow, as a twelve-year-old girl, was intensely believable in every way, from the first little smiles to that last running grasp of skirts. Grayling is the kind of cat every little girl reading books through her childhood longed for.

Every character—from King, to ex-mistress, to courtier, to the guards, the staff, and even the assailants—is written in such a three-dimensional way that makes you feel for them, even if you don't agree with everything their past circumstances have them doing currently. I am equally hopeful to read more in this universe, and just to watch Kingfisher continue her quest of retelling any number of fairytales forever. There are so many people who will need to be bought a copy of this for Christmas!

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Thanks to Tor Books for the gifted copy!

A retelling of Snow White, HEMLOCK & SILVER follows the story of Healer Anja and a desperate call from the King to help save his daughter, Snow.

The way I read this story in two sittings within a 12-hour period of time should say it all - I absolutely LOVED it.

All the talk of poisons and intrigue told from Anja’s point of view intricately examining everything was the best. She was such a refreshing FMC and I Ioved how she brought us into this story and captivated us the entire time. She was also just so highly RELATABLE. That, plus the familiar elements of the Snow White story made for a compelling retelling that I didn’t want to depart from — so I just kept reading. With magic mirrors, a talking cat, and a guard who will have you giggling, this story steeped in poison is absolutely a must-read.

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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Weird, smart, creepy, and totally original.

This book really surprised me in the best way. Hemlock and Silver is one of the most unique blends of genres I’ve read in a while. It mixes fantasy, horror, magical realism, and even a bit of mystery in a way that just works. It’s a dark retelling of Snow White but not like anything I’ve seen before.

It started a little slow for me, but once the main character went through the mirror I was hooked. I couldn’t stop thinking about it even after I finished a chapter. What did that mean? What’s really going on here? The world she enters is so strange and eerie. I liked that the book didn’t try to explain everything. It felt like it looked at magic through a scientific lens, and it really leaned into how many unknowns there were without trying to make sense of it all. That made it feel even more real and unsettling.

The main character was a standout. She’s not trying to be likable, and yet I liked her a lot. She’s grounded, sharp, a little prickly, and just very human. I also didn’t expect the book to be so funny, but it really was. That dry humor hit perfectly.

The romance subplot was just the right amount. Not too much, but enough to add something to the story. And I really liked the mystery element too. It had this slow-burn “whodunit” feeling that kept me guessing. Overall it was creative, strange, thoughtful, and such a fresh take on a familiar story.

Highly recommend if you like fairytales with teeth, flawed but real characters, and stories that stick in your head after you close the book.

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4.5 stars.

HEMLOCK & SILVER, by T. Kingfisher, is a dark Fantasy/Fairytale reimagining of Snow White--with Kingfisher's own twist to the story, of course.

We have Healer Anja, who's isn't a "regular" healer, but rather one who studies (and occasionally ingests) poisons to find treatments to them. When the King suddenly approaches her in her workroom--telling her of killing his wife (who had killed one of their daughters), and another daughter who seemed to be dying from an unknown cause, it's quite the shock to her ordinary routine. Out of options, the King suspects someone is poisoning twelve-year-old Snow, and requests that Anja accompany him to one of his castles to try and treat her.

It doesn't do any good to say "no" to a King, so Anja finds herself with bodyguards and a long trek through the dessert.

The first third of the book was primarily Anja discussing her methods and how she got into her profession of looking for cures for poisons. While I found this rather interesting on its own, the actual "plot" of the book didn't seem to begin until after that. Once she finally arrives at the King's second palace, the pacing picks up dramatically. Her adventures with her one guard, Javier, are quite bit more "interesting", her encounter with a narcissist talking cat, and finding a hidden "mirror realm" take up the remainder of the book.

Oh, and trying to find out what's causing Snow's illness, and how to save the young Princess.

Anja's down to earth views and witty sarcasm quickly made her a favorite character. The only one I can say I possibly enjoyed more was the talking cat, Grayling.

Overall, a brand new take on the fairy tale of Snow White, with magic, talking animals, mirror realms, and plenty of discussions of ingesting various poisons and things to counteract them.

Recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an E-Arc of this title. All opinions are uniquely my own.

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𝓡𝓪𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓰 5/5 ⭐️

Hemlock & Silver by T.Kingfisher introduces you to Healer Anja. She regularly drinks poison to find a cure that everyone else has given up on. One day to the King comes to call on her to find out what is wrong with daughter who may have been poisoned.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book! Publish date is August 19, 2025!

T. Kingfisher is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. I did not realize this was a reimagining of Snow White but as I was reading it became apparent. This is a darker retelling with a some treason and intrigue thrown in.

Healer Anja just seemed so relatable. Terrible with people, fascinated with poison, and absolutely no filter. I love that even though she never gives up. She continues to test and try and find the answers.

The romance in here was very much in the background. I think it added a really nice touch to the story line but didn’t take away from the main plot! Just a wonderfully written book with science against magic and real world vs the alternate world.

I would say if you like darker retellings of fairy tales and enjoy a medium-paced adventurous book with poison and treason you would probably enjoy this!

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-3.25 stars rounded down

If you liked T Kingfisher’s previous works, there’s a high chance you’ll like this one. This book is full of her usual wry humor and endearing characters. T Kingfisher really excels at taking these fairy tales and turning them into her own unique story without being derivative.

Healer Anja is an expert in poisons. She’s blunt, awkward, and antisocial but cannot refuse the king when he asks her to treat his daughter who he suspects has been poisoned. Soon she realizes there’s more to this illness than she thought, when she discovers an alternate world inside the mirrors.

The romantic subplot was cute, but unfortunately, I did struggle with the pacing and the first 30-40% felt really slow to me because it was mostly just traveling to the location. It picked up during the second half though. I think I would have enjoyed this more if the author had leaned more into the darker tones/horror aspect in this book because the humor was a little bit much for me at times. Overall, once the story got going it was a fun read and I’m always a sucker for dark fairy tales.

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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This was such a fantastic adventure of a book! I am so glad that I do not have T. Kingfisher's imagination for macabre frightening creatures but I do love reading about them. She always has the perfect balance of humor, adventure, romance and pathos. Her characters come alive off the pages from the very start. I loved this and will highly recommend it to all readers of fantasy.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

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Reading a T Kingfisher book is like being curled up in a nice comfy chair, with a soft blanket and a cup of tea, maybe it's either a nice gently sunny day or a soothing rainy day depending on your mood, and then bodies start falling from the sky but you're so cozy that you shrug and keep going.

I've been hanging on to this ARC as a reward to myself for working through my TBR. I enjoyed this dark Snow White inspired tale: Anja as the latest typical Kingfisher heroine was wonderfully competent yet awkward, and working through the mystery of who was poisoning the King's daughter was interesting and intriguing. Kingfisher does the gently macabre so well. I thought this was well paced and unique, and I'd recommend it to any fans of hers or the general cozy fantasy but with corpses sub genre!

Thanks to the author, NetGalley, and especially to Tor for allowing me through (we are not worthy!) for this ARC!

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Anja, worked as a “Healer”, with her knowledge of poisons and antidotes as her main focus of study. From a young age, Anja, questioned what causes antidotes to work after watching her cousin die from eating “hemlock”.

One day while working, the King came to her asking advice. The King was known for killing his former wife in the months recently passed for her nutulaing their child. When his remaining child becomes ill, he looked to Anja, for help treating princess Snow’s condition when every other physician failed to do so.

Until one day Anja, caught Snow, eating a silver apple … and then everything began to fall into place.


“For as a Key fits into the Lock, because the Lock is its mirror image, so does the Antidote fits into the Posion as its own mirror image”.


**This dark romantasy telling of Snow White was both
fun and a different concept than expected. I enjoyed the writing style and witty banter between the characters but I felt that there could have been less lead up to the main purpose of the story. I recommend it for anyone that loves retellings with no spice as well as strong female leads.

3.5 ⭐️

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T. Kingfisher always has such a creative (and often dark!) approach to fairytale re-tellings, and this one, a re-imaging of “Snow White,” was no different! I think a lot of authors shy away from this fairytale due to the inherent passive nature of the heroine. I mean, you can’t do a lot with a girl who ends up in a magical slumber during all the action at the end! Wisely, Kingfisher refocuses the story on her classic prototype of a main character: a mature woman who’s hyper focused in one area of expertise, has not time for anyone’s shit, and really, really doesn’t want to get dragged into things. And so we meet Anja, a woman with a boundless knowledge of poisons who is pulled in to solve a mysterious wasting disease affecting the king’s daughter.

In many ways, you have to squint a bit at this one to see the parallels to “Snow White.” The story itself is completely different, with only names, important magical elements (mirrors and apples) and villains being similar. And with the latter, even this was wildly different than the classic version of the story you may be familiar with. And I really liked this! In some ways, the villain of the story can come across as a bit mustache-twirling, but it was such a unique take on the Queen character, with many twists and turns along the way that I enjoyed the heck out of it.

I also really enjoyed Snow herself. This is now two fairytale books in a row from Kingfisher where she has tackled young teenage/children characters. It’s tricky to write kids in a way that is believable and natural, but here, Snow has all of the spunk of a pre-teen paired with all of the foolish self-confidence of the young. She’s at times incredibly unlikable, but also so sympathetic. Ah, the teenage years.

The magic of this world and its interplay with the poisoned apple and mirrors from “Snow White” was so original and unique. Perhaps too unique at times. Large portions of the middle of the book had to be devoted to explaining just how this magic worked, necessary information to fully understand what had happened in the past and how events unfolded at the conclusion of this book. Even now, while I was able to stick with the major plot points, I might struggle to explain exactly how some of this worked. It was definitely interesting, and I think Kingfisher did a good job trying to explain the ins and outs of it. But the necessary detailed descriptions of Anja testing this out did slow the pacing down quite a bit.

I also liked Anja and the subplot of her romance, but I will say that both of these elements were a bit reduced from this author’s usual highs. That’s to say, Kingfisher usually knocks it out of the park, and here, they were just ok. Anja read as a very familiar leading lady, and while I enjoyed her immensely, I did feel like I had read variations of this same character from this author before. The love story was also very much on peripheral of the story. Which, again, that is typical of this author’s approach to her romances in these fairytale fantasies. But here, there perhaps just wasn’t quite enough built up between these two to really hone in on their love story.

Overall, however, I thought this was an incredibly unique version of “Snow White.” There were so many creative twists and turns that I thoroughly enjoyed. Perhaps the pacing lagged a bit in the middle and the main character read as a bit too familiar, but Kingfisher’s strengths as a writer carried me through it all. This perhaps wasn’t my favorite of her books, but I still really enjoyed it and definitely recommend it for readers looking for a unique fairytale re-telling!

Rating 8: A wholly unique version of “Snow White,” if perhaps not a wholly unique feeling heroine.

Link will go live on The Library Ladies on August 8.

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T Kingfisher is quickly becoming my favourite fantasy author. Hemlock and Silver once again knocks it out of the park. This is a Snow White retelling in that it involves apples, mirrors, and a princess named Snow - but that's all. Here we get a blunt poison-worker, Anja, who gets called away by The King to save his ailing daughter. Anja doesn't consider herself to be a healer, and she certainly isn't good with people, but she tries her best. This is one of the most imaginative stories I've read in a while, full of Kingfisher's dry humour, wonder, with a touch of romance (and a bit of horror). I'll definitely be reccomendong this to customers when it hits our shelves!

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thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the e-arc! 3.5/5 stars rounded up, you can always count on t kingfisher for a good fairy tale retelling

kingfisher continues to prove exactly why I love her writing so much - her wit and dry humor bleeds through into her characters, and she's got such a talent for imagining up the craziest, freakiest stuff you've never thought of before. her characters are eternally endearing - anja is that perfect mix of smart and silly and amusing, and javier's character goes from relatively nonexistent to full of life. I always love that kingfisher's main characters, thought kinda goofy and a little dumb socially sometimes, are razor smart in their given fields, especially considering a lot of these are set in periods where women tend to be less educated. even the side characters are memorable, and you can't help but love them as they come up in the story. the explanation of the mirror world did confuse me a bit, and I had to reread those sections more than a few times, though it was interesting to see anja try and figure things out. I also loved the setting, especially for a snow white retelling - the desert is the last place you think of when thinking of princess adjacent fairy tales, so I really enjoyed that switch up and how it influenced the story. one thing that I struggled with was the tenses - they switched around often and in weird places, so I struggled to figure out when things were happening. I don't think kingfisher's had an issue with this before, but it was strangely prominent here. overall though, an enjoyable kingfisher retelling, if not her best work.

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4.5 stars. Healer Anja became passionate about poisons (and finding the cures for them) after witnessing a death in her family as a child. Content to spend her life seeking answers and attempting to help addicts, Anja is shocked when she's approached by the King. The King's only surviving daughter, Snow, is suffering from a mysterious illness. No doctor has been able to help her and so the King has called on Anja to see if Snow is being poisoned. Reluctantly, Anja is packed off to a palace in the middle of the desert, where she finds that Snow is indeed ailing. However it's like no poison she's ever seen. It will take her discovery of a mysterious apple and something flickering inside a mirror before Anja and her companions have the hope of freeing Snow from the thing that's hurting her. Twisted fairy tale fantasy, a dash of horror, a talking cat and a lick of a romantic subplot. I had a great time! Give to folks who love the deeply practical protagonist of 'The Apothecary Diaries' who want a harder lean into magic.

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5 stars

I wasn’t sure what to expect from a Snow White retelling, but a disconcertingly alien mirror world hiding behind the looking glass wasn’t it. I loved it!

Some standard Kingfisher fare that fans will recognize and adore: an expert-in-her-niche-field protagonist struggling to survive the situation she’s been placed in, a very root-for-able romantic interest, a charming and sensible older woman side character, and the feeling that the floor’s been dropped out from under you.

The best word to describe the mirror world (the central conceit of this book) is probably “unsettling.” I mean that reading about the mirror world is physically unsettling; I felt my insides shifting uneasily as I read about the strange reflective plane that hides behind every mirror in the universe. And yet it was strangely charming, in a might-kill-you way, that reminded me of some Studio Ghibli fare—so Ghibli fans should give this one a try.

I really enjoyed the portrayal of the princess Snow herself. In the most common iterations of the fairy tale she’s described as being strikingly beautiful, but uncanny (skin white as snow, hair black as ebony, lips red as blood). In this version, all color has been leached out of her: her skin is alabaster pale, but her lips are as well, and her hair is even whiter, so that her eyebrows looked like angry white scars against the skin of her face. What an evocative way to describe this delicate, fey, mysterious child! I loved getting to know more and more about Snow as the novel went on.

I really loved our protagonist, an autistic-coded poison (or rather, antidote) expert named Anja, who is determined to Fix things. I was also very intrigued by the world, a cacti-studded desert setting where the people worship animal demi-gods (Saints) and humourism remains the gold standard of medical science. Kingfisher made me believe in this charmingly mish-mashed place and delighted with each new tidbit of worldbuilding information she let fall. The plot is well-paced and I loved the way a certain element present from the very beginning of the novel came back full circle in the ending (spoilers omitted).

I’d recommend this book to established Kingfisher fans, new readers interested in darkly reimagined fairy tales, and anyone who appreciates an inventive, imaginative, and fresh new take on a fantasy world.

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