Name: Where the Dark Stands Still
Author: A.B. Poranek
Publisher: Penguin Books
Date published: February 2024
Genre: Fiction, young adult, fantasy
Pages: 416
Rating: 4/5
This review contains minor spoilers.
Raised in a small village near the spirit-wood, Liska Radost knows that Magic is monstrous, and its practitioners, monsters.
After a deadly mistake, Liska delves into the dangerous spirit-wood, guarded by a demon to steal a mythical fern flower. Pluck it, and she can use its one wish to banish her own power.
Everyone who has sought the fern flower has fallen prey to the horrors of the Czantory, so when Liska is caught by the demon warden of the wood - The Leszy - a bargain seems better than death: one year of servitude in exchange for the fern flower and its wish.
Whisked away to his crumbling manor, Liska soon makes an unsettling discovery. She is not the first person to strike this bargain. And If Liska wants to survive the year and return home, she must unravel her taciturn host’s spool of secrets and face the ghosts - figurative and literal - of his past.
Something wakes in the woods, killing off villagers one by one. Something that frightens even The Leszy... something that cannot be defeated unless Liska embraces the monster she’s always feared becoming.
- From Goodreads.
The atmosphere, setting and descriptions in this book were all perfect. I loved how it was both a little scary and creepy with all the creatures in the woods and the curse, but also beautifully magical with the house that came alive and had a personality of its own. The magic that Liska and the Leszy could do was also fascinating and so exciting to learn about.
The plot really had me hooked, I was so invested in learning all the mysteries and following Liska and the Leszy as they learnt more about each other and came to understand each other. The way their relationship slowly built was just perfect and I adored them together.
The whole story was like a brilliant combination of Howl's Moving Castle, Beauty and the Beast and darker fairy tale style stories like Naomi Novik's Uprooted. I think the author did a wonderful job of weaving together all the different elements of inspiration to create a new story.
The only thing I was conflicted on was the ending, which was left quite open-ended. While it did have a hopeful note at the end, I had been hoping for more of a happy ending, after everything the characters had been through. This might just be a more personal preference as I know not every book needs a completely happy ending and it is not always a bad thing when they do not have one, and since this was a darker fairy tale style story I was not even expecting a total happily ever after, but I think personally I just needed something a little bit more satisfying at the end.
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