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by Rena Rossner
Captivating and boldly imaginative, with a tale of sisterhood at its heart, Rena Rossner's debut fantasy invites you to enter a world filled with magic, folklore, and the dangers of the woods.
In a remote village surrounded by vast forests on the border of Moldova and Ukraine, sisters Liba and Laya have been raised on the honeyed scent of their Mami's babka and the low rumble of their Tati's prayers. But when a troupe of mysterious men arrives, Laya falls under their spell, despite their mother's warning to be wary of strangers. And this is not the only danger lurking in the woods.
As dark forces close in on their village, Liba and Laya discover a family secret passed down through generations. Faced with a magical heritage they never knew existed, the sisters realize the old fairy tales are true...and could save them all.
"Starred Review. Drawing on true events, folklore, and Christina Rosetti's classic The Goblin Market, Rossner's fairy tale is creepy and moving by turn, full of heart, history, and enchantment" - Publishers Weekly
"A first purchase where Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone and Gregory Maguire's Egg and Spoon are popular." - Library Journal
"Rossner's debut weaves a richly detailed story of Jewish identity and sisterhood... emotionally charged, full of sharp historical detail and well-deployed Yiddish phrases...Ambitious and surprising." - Kirkus
"An enthralling debut." - Lavie Tidhar, author of World Fantasy Award winner Osama
"The Sisters of the Winter Wood is a graceful, poetic, deeply moving novel. A simply gorgeous book in every sense." - Louisa Morgan, author of A Secret History of Witches
"The Sisters of the Winter Wood mixes fairy tale, poetry, history, and heart to create an enchanting and mesmerizing tale of sisterly love." - Sarah Beth Durst, award-winning author of The Queens of Renthia series
"This dark fairy tale about sisterly love and Jewish strength and courage, set against the backdrop of a deep and deadly winter forest, will haunt me for a long time. A powerful, emotional debut." - Julie C. Dao, author of Forest of a Thousand Lanterns
"The Sisters of the Winter Wood is a vivid, fascinating, excellently drawn story of the fragility of peace and the resilience of love that reaches back into history, out into folklore, and forward into the present." - Pamela Dean, author of Tam Lin
"A deeply moving story of sisterly love, steeped in the rich tradition of Jewish folklore. Atmospheric and enchanting, it's sure to delight fans of Naomi Novik's Uprooted." - Lana Popovic author of Wicked Like A Wildfire
"Fairy tales, folklore, and poetry make an intoxicating brew in The Sisters of the Winter Wood, a luminous debut by an exciting new talent." - Ilana C. Meyer, author of Last Song Before Night
"Rossner weaves an elegant tapestry of the love between sisters, the value of faith and family, and knowing one's true friends in times of peril." - J. Kathleen Cheney, author of The Golden City
This information about The Sisters of the Winter Wood was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Rena Rossner lives in Israel where she works as a Literary Agent. She is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University's Writing Seminars program, Trinity College Dublin and McGill University where she studied history. All eight of her great grandparents immigrated to America to escape the pogroms in Moldova, Russia, Romania and the Ukraine - from towns like Dubossary, Kupel, Riga and Bendera. It is their story, together with her love of Jewish mythology and fantasy, that inspired her to write The Sisters of the Winter Wood.
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