Hemlock & Silver - T. Kingfisher - ★★★.¼

AUTHOR: T. Kingfisher

NARRATOR: Jennifer Pickens

GENRE: Fantasy, Retelling

PUBLICATION DATE: August 19, 2025

RATING: 3.25 stars.

In a Nutshell: A dark fantasy reimagining the fairytale of Snow White (without the dwarves.) Creative in its plotline with enough novelty to stand as an independent story. Slow-moving in the first half. Too many inner monologues. Not much historical feel in the conversations. Recommended, but it might be a better option for YA fantasy lovers, even though the FMC is in her mid-thirties.

Plot Preview:

Thirty-five-year-old Anja is a healer who specialises in making antidotes for various kinds of venom and poison. Her quiet life is interrupted by an urgent summons from the king: his daughter Snow is exhibiting symptoms of poisoning, and he hopes that Anja's unconventional knowledge can help. Anja has no choice but to agree. At the palace though, she realises that none of her treatments are showing any positive results. That is, until she discovers an egoistic talking cat, a secret mirror world, and a taciturn palace guard – not necessarily in that order.

The story comes to us in Anja's first-person perspective.

My second T. Kingfisher book within a week, all thanks to library holds that came in back to back. This wasn’t as gripping as ‘A Sorceress Comes to Call’, possibly because of the strong YA feel to the FMC’s first-person narrative. But it was still fairly entertaining.

Bookish Yays:

🐱 The talking cat. Everything you would expect a talking cat to be, and then some.

🐱 All the poison stuff, thanks to Anja’s work and her experiences at the palace.

🐱 The mirror world. Just awesome! There are so many facets to mirrors and the author seemed to have thought of everything while creating this fascinating alter-world.

🐱 The retelling aspects. To be clear, this is a reimagining and not a straight retelling. It offers enough of an ode to Snow White while still having a distinct personality of its own. At the same time, it isn’t as dark as I thought it would be. The darkness is mostly off the page, further adding to its YA feel.

🐱 A good quantity of humour to lighten the dark story.

🐱 The cover art. Stunning and perfect for the story!

Bookish Okays:

👑 Anja. A wonderful lead but she never sounds 35. It would be better to think of her as a twenty-something if you want to tolerate her constant mulling over irrelevant things.

👑 I love that Anja’ is a plus-sized protagonist. No one else ever comments on her weight or height, and there is no bodyshaming. At the same time, her constant references to her girth and built get annoying. Once it is established that she is larger than typical fictional leads, why not trust the reader’s memory?

👑 The story is an mix of predictable and unpredictable. While some developments can be seen coming from miles away, a couple of them create surprise. Then again, given the fairy tale being retold, the villain’s identity can hardly be kept a secret.

👑 The romance subplot wasn’t expected (of course, I never expect romance in any non-romance story; my bad) but it went decently, I s’pose. The annoying thing was the overreliance on mentions of physical attraction and stirrings.

👑 The first half is very slow, with hardly anything fantastical (or normal) happening. All the creativity and action is reserved for later.

Bookish Nays:

🍎 The abundance of inner monologues. First-person writing anyway has this issue, but it is too much in this book. The endless rambling and self-questioning became irksome after a point.

🍎 The conversations don't sound historical most of the times. Many phrases and reactions seem contemporary, though the story is clearly not so.

🍎 The king’s minimal appearance. Considering his personality and his concern for his daughter, I’d have expected him to be more active in the story.

🍎 The ending. Too rushed, with an instant explanation and settlement of every pending arc.

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:

The audiobook, clocking at 11 hrs 50 min, is narrated by Jennifer Pickens. She is quite good, offering each character with a strong personality. At the same time, her voice for twelve-year-old Snow was a bit of a misfit. Furthermore, I kept getting distracted by her pronunciation of ‘vague’ as ‘vheg’ (rhyming with ‘beg’).

Overall, thanks to the positive experience I had with ‘A Sorceress Comes to Call’ and the promotion of this as a dark reimagining of Snow White, my expectations were probably a bit too high. It isn’t a bad book by far, but it also isn’t one I’ll remember beyond a few days. Still, as with most books, it works well enough if you don’t overthink. Maybe this isn't the author’s best book and I did like the other one I read, so I am still willing to try her other works and see how they click.

Recommended to YA Fantasy fans who don’t mind a thirty-something lead in a story that is otherwise suitable for them.