2019/82: Spinning Silver -- Naomi Novik

He would only shrug and look at me expand ectantly again, waiting for high magic: magic that came only when you made some larger version of yourself with words and promises, and then stepped inside and somehow grew to fill it. [loc. 6018]

Miryem Mandelstam is the daughter of a moneylender: she's much better at the job than her father is, and she earns the hostility of the townsfolk when she calls in their debts. Not all debts are paid in gold or silver, though, and Miryem engages Wanda, daughter of a violent drunk, to work for the Mandelstams until her father's debt is paid. Wanda is very happy with this arrangement, as it offers her the chance of independence, some power of her own.

Miryem turns out to be a canny investor, buying for silver and selling for gold. She earns her grandfather's approval -- and the attention of the Staryk, the magical, beautiful, predatory folk whose road encroaches on human lands, and whose presence brings winter. And the winters are getting longer and harder ...

Miryem and Wanda are two of the triptych of female protagonists: the third is Irina, a duke's daughter whose father intends her to make a good match despite her lack of beauty. She remembers the tsar as a cruel, cold boy, and is repelled by the notion of marrying him. But Irina has no power.

These three young women, and the bargains they make with powerful men -- the duke, the Tsar, the Staryk king -- are at the heart of Spinning Silver. It's based on the fairytale of Rumpelstiltskin, and unpicks some of the antiSemitism at the heart of that story. (Miryem is a practising Jew, and insists on celebrating Shabbat even when whirled away to a magical realm where there is no sunrise or sunset.) Spinning Silver has a fairytale sensibility, with Wanda's dead mother's spirit imbuing a white tree, with a witch's house that stands on the borders of two worlds, with the power of names. Like the witch's house, though, it is liminal, and reflective: demons and drunkards, glass castles and ghettos,a labourer worth her hire and a loyalty unearnt.

I wasn't wholly convinced by the narrative voices. Miryem, Wanda and Irena didn't read very differently from one another. Additionally, there are occasional scenes from other viewpoints, such as Wanda's younger brother and the tsar Mirnatius (who has supernatural problems of his own). But I did enjoy this novel, especially for its exploration of agency and free will.

Read as part of the Hugo Award Voters' Pack.