Hemlock and Silver by T. Kingfisher

Book Review

Pauline Morgan

There is a fashion for rewriting and reinterpreting fairy tales. Some readers find this comforting as they have an idea as to the progression of the plot, and although there may be twists along the way, the ending is likely to be as expected. This approach is very different from taking some of the ideas from a fairy tale and weaving them with other elements to produce a delightfully different fantasy tale. This is something that T. Kingfisher is very good at.

            At the start of Hemlock &Silver, Anja is confronted by the king in her workshop. Anja is the thirty-five-year-old daughter of a wealthy merchant. Although her sisters are happily married, she is not interested in a conventional life. She is a delightful and quirky character. Her passion is poisons. Ever since her cousin died after mistaking hemlock for a carrot, she has devoted her life to trying to find cures for poisons. She is very depreciative of her own skills but is focused on what she sees as a vocation. She has gained a reputation as the go-to person if someone has been poisoned.

            The king admits to her that the rumours that he killed his wife are true, but that he did it because he caught her cutting out the heart of his daughter, Rose. Now, he is afraid that his other daughter, Snow, is being poisoned. He doesn’t know who to trust and wants Anja to find out what the poison is, stop it happening, and find out who is doing it. The king has sent Snow to distant Witherleaf – three days’ ride across the desert – away from possible danger, but her symptoms persist. Anja is assigned two bodyguards and joins the king’s entourage to Witherleaf.

            Initially, while accepting that Snow is probably being poisoned but cannot identify it or the person providing it. The breakthrough is partly coincidence and being in the right place at the right time. Sitting unobserved in the garden, Anja sees Snow pick up an apple and bite into it. Anja confiscates it and notices that it has a silvery sheen. She believes she has found the source of the poison, but she is unable to identify it, so she rests in on herself. The next piece of the puzzle occurs when she trips, falls against a mirror, and passes through it into a mirror world.

            The inspiration for this novel is Snow White, but with deviations from the traditional tale. There is a poisoned apple, a mirror and a wicked queen, but the latter is a reflection of Snow’s mother, a mirror queen. There are no dwarfs or handsome prince (Snow is only twelve years-old). Instead, there is a talking cat who is probably not what he seems, but who is willing to give Anja clues to solving the mystery in return for cream or fish. Hemlock & Silver is a good example of how elements of a traditional tale can be effectively used to create something new.

            While I enjoyed reading this book, it does lag a little in the middle where Anja and her bodyguard, Javier, are exploring the mirror world.