First of all this book is so stunning, I ended up buying several copies for friends at Christmas. It’s a stunning fable with aspects of feminism that I read in one Sunday afternoon cuddled up on the couch. The world it’s based in is a patriarchy, where the elders are using legends and superstition to keep their community under control. 

Our heroine Edith is a beautiful young girl, who is in love with a shepherd Demetrius, but her father wants to engage her to the Butcher. The Butcher is a cruel, brutal man who is obsessed with Edith’s beauty. Demetrius leaves the village, promising to return for her, and her father makes her a promise. If Demetrius returns during a certain time frame she is free, but if he doesn’t return she will have to honour the promise and wed the Butcher. I felt so sad for Edith, waiting every day for his return with the deafening growing ever closer. When he doesn’t come back to the village, Edith becomes mute. 

Her muteness was strangely a way she connected with the women in her community. It’s as if silence speaks louder than words. The women gravitate towards her as a counsellor, they can offload their emotions to her and disclose secrets, knowing she will listen and that she will keep their secret. In her silence is a strength that the women take away with them. It inspires them towards small acts of rebellion. Just like a whisper can be heard in a room of shouting, the men start to notice these women and the consequences of their laws and rules. It forces change. I loved this aspect of feminism within the fairy tale. 

The landscape was stunning, the women’ emancipation was wonderful, and it was simply a beautiful story.

An absolutely stunning read, I was completely hooked reading this. It’s a heartbreaking feminist fairytale, it’s beautiful in its imagery, it’s metaphor for Edith’s silence representing the lack of voice women and she had in her life, the fact that she was able to provide someone who listened to the other women in the village, who are all equally repressed by the elders and men in the village. A wonderful tale of love, magic and the power of women , sadly this fairytale and themes are still present throughout the world and western society. This is an uplifting read despite its themes, one that leaves you changed from reading it. An hauntingly beautiful read.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

What an enchanting read! I rarely return to books (there are so many more to read!) but this is one I will add to next year's Christmas read. It's the Christmas fairytale we all (especially daughters) need to read. Edith is a village daughter of the local cabinet maker. Her father has tried to persuade her to marry the local butcher. He is decades older with tow grown up daughters and is an all round bully. Edith meets Demitrious a shepherd, she hears him play the violin and they fall in love with one another. He asks her to marry him and she agrees bequeathing him her gold coin. Demitrious promises to return before the next snow fall. When he doesn't Edith loses her ability to speak. What follows is the growth and transformation of an exceptional woman in not just transforming herself but the suspicious villagers too. The descriptions of snow and even avalanches are quite magical. This is just exquisite - thank you Sally Gardner.

A wonderfully written dark fairytale for adults with no cutesy charm of a Disney story. 5* rating - Fabulous! 

I absolutely loved this novel by Sally Gardner and couldn’t put it down. When I started reading I thought the fable would be based around the love story of Edith and Demetrius. How wrong I was! That is only the beginning and as with any fable, perfect ideologies are often overlooked. Each character is created with such detail and raw emotion that the heroes and villains are well distinguished. Each chapter is written with such care and detail that there are no plot holes. Twists and secrets executed with perfection and the description of scenery beautiful. 

I really don’t want to hint at any spoilers but this whimsical tale of patriarchal control, oppressed women, tradition and superstition will stick with you long after the final page.

This is a tragic story of abuse, rape, domestic violence, bullying and corruption it is set in such a dramatic and romantic setting it almost takes away some of the horror of what Edith and most of the women suffer. It shows the cowardice of the men and how when you can find the courage to stand up for what’s right you are rarely alone. The setting is in another time, another world but somehow feels very real and you can certainly feel how these women find a way to survive. Mixed with magic and folklore means you are not reading such sadness that drains you but uplifts you for something better.
I truly love how the women eventually stand up for each other and together

Falling for a shepherd, Edith is promised to the Butcher if he does not return by winter.  As the first snow falls, Edith's hair turns white and she loses the power of speech.  Running away from her wedding she finds a shelter in the woods and survives to the next year, returning to her village and being viewed as a demon.  But Edith's lack of voice has allowed others to find theirs and the village starts to rebel against tradition.
This is a rather oddly endearing book.  At first I found it frustrating with the faux naif style and the simplistic folk tale, then it started to get darker and very adult themes of sex and violence were hinted at.  A fairy story for modern generations and strangely excellent

Snow and magic.
This book should be devoured in one sitting, curled up by a fire.
The story of Edith,  coping with her alcoholic, feckless Father, the death of her beloved Grandmother and an unwanted promise to marry the evil Butcher.
Good, evil and easily led characters are all beholden to the Butcher in the tiny snowy village which shuns strangers. 
An avalanche brings matters to a head and Edith escapes for a while to the beautiful snowy forest, only to return to the suspicions of the villagers. The truth of the Butchers sinful ways emerges leading to redemption.

It has been quite a long time since I have read anything by Sally Gardner, around six years if I am trying to keep some sort of record. However, nothing was going to be able to prepare me for what was in store for me when reading 'The Snow Song'. 

The Snow Song is one of those books which you can clearly see the message behind it and for this occasion it is crystal clear. To the point that it screams in your ear, pointing out what is clearly wrong in this society. It is heart wrenching and powerful and it is amazing to see how women are able to come together when they know something is wrong.

This is not in any shape of form for anyone younger than eighteen years-old as it deals with mature themes which can be quite hard for anyone. However, it is clear that sometimes in order to spread the message, there must be first some home truths about what society is to us and how it can be toxic.

The protagonist, Edith, is one character you can see develop from a naïve woman to a indestructible feminist who stands up for all of the women in her society. Her story is interesting and somehow you can't seem to look away from the horrors that she has to overcome and conquer. Truly she is an amazing character and Gardner does incredible work to make sure she gets the best character arc that she truly deserves.

Because of the nature of this book, the Butcher, the main antagonist throughout the story is one who Gardner paints to be terrifying not only for the characters in the book, but also the reader, where unfortunately, the Butcher's moral code can still be seen in the world today. Never have I read a book quite like this, almost singing like a tale of what used to be, what could happen and what shouldn't happen. This is a book that makes you want to read all through the night, where it tears at your soul and rebuilds it back together all in the same night.

So if I was to give any advice about this book and whether you decide to take the plunge to read it in the future all I can say is this: be prepared, you'll never be the same again.

The Snow Song is a beautifully wintry story which would be perfect, I think, for readers who also enjoyed books like Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane. I noticed, in the isolated village location and feminist fairytale style, parallels with Wondrous Journeys In Strange Lands by Sonia Nimr which I will be reviewing next month.

I loved Gardner's portrayal of this entrenched community and the stunning mountain location surrounding them. The Snow Song is a fairytale so characters do fall into stereotypical roles, but there is also a greater emotional depth and complexity than I had expected to each of them. Gardner deftly captures the people's fear and shows how easily this is used to manipulate them. She also understands how people, particularly certain of the women here, use and enforce repressive traditions to protect their own social standings. They would rather see themselves at the top of the second class echelon than fight for true equality and risk being only one among many.

Edith's daily life is constrained by her village's traditions - a series of edicts designed by the male elders in order to keep 'their' women within the village and to ensure all strangers stay away. When Edith flouts these rules by chatting to an itinerant shepherd, she sets in course a battle of wills that results in her not only being figuratively silenced, but literally so. Edith's narrative is very much a coming of age story as she matures from idealistic lovestruck girl to self-determined woman. She isn't actually a princess, but this story is firmly in the 'princess saves herself' genre and is a fine example! I highly recommend The Snow Song to young adult and adult fairytale readers.

Perched high on a mountain in a land of ancient forests lies a village, cut off from the outside world and run by elders, men to whom tradition is all. Edith lives alone with her alcoholic father who is forcing her to marry the village butcher, a brutal, bullying man to whom many in the village are in debt. But Edith is in love with a shepherd who promised to return to her. As the village becomes even further isolated in a sea of snow, and her lover fails to return, Edith loses her power of speech. And it is this that will have far-reaching consequences, not only for Edith but for the whole village.

Sally Gardner is an award-winning author of many books for children and young adults, and has previously written two fairytale-esque novels for adults – An Almond For a Parrot (2016), the story of eighteenth century courtesan and magician’s apprentice, Tully Truegood, and The Beauty of The Wolf (2019), an Elizabethan, gender-swapped reimagining of ‘Beauty & the Beast’ – under the pen name Wray Delaney. And her latest, The Snow Song, is even more fairytale-like in its construction and execution.

The story is set in an archetypal fairytale location of a rural village surrounded by forest. The wider setting of which is never made clear exactly, but little clues sprinkled throughout – certain names, pieces of folklore (such as people coming back from dead as creature known as the ‘bloodless’) and the presence of traveling peoples/communities – all suggest a location inspired by Russia or Eastern Europe. As for a time-period, it has that ‘once upon a time’ vagueness – where technology is minimal and could be anywhere between medieval and modern. The protagonist is Edith, daughter of the local cabinet maker, who falls in love with a shepherd named Demetrious, a stranger to the village. This angers the village Butcher, who also wants to marry Edith, despite the fact that he’s old enough to be her grandfather. But the Butcher is also a member of the village Elders, the group of prominent male figures – the Mayor, the Priest, the Doctor etc – and this position of power allows him to split the young lovers apart. When Demetrious fails to return, Edith, in her sorrow, loses the power of speech.

But this is where Gardner takes the archetypes and builds upon them, while also tackling some relevant themes and topics. A lot of the male figures, particularly those in positions of power, tend to be either weak-willed and/or bullying; the Butcher exploits the weaknesses of others as a means to make them indebted to him, leading them to not only not stand up to him but to facilitate his behaviour. Edith may have lost her voice but she doesn’t remain passive, indeed she cannot afford to – no one is going to magically going to swoop in and save her. This also brings us to another couple of fairy tale archetypes: the wise woman and the deceased maternal figure. Edith’s grandmother, who is deceased prior to the story, was the village storyteller, and the positive influence in her life to counter her father’s negative. The act of storytelling itself is an important component of the book, and how through it truths can be told and strength and hope can be found. This is a story about Edith, literally, finding her voice, about women finding their voices and making them heard.

The style is beautiful in its simplicity, creating a modern fairytale that is perfect for the cold winter months, but with a warm heart beating underneath, waiting for the warmth of the spring melt to reveal it.

The Snow Song by Sally Gardner is a beautifully written and magical read that’s perfect for this time of year. As the nights grow colder and thoughts turn to the festive season, what could be better than to curl up with a gorgeous book set in a world of snow and magic?

I loved this book. It swept me away on a dark and magical journey that once started I could not put down. Edith was a character I found myself drawn to from the outset, my heart breaking at her predicament of being forced into marrying a man she doesn’t love. The shock of losing the love of her life causes her hair to turn white and takes away her power of speech, leaving her with no other choice than to marry the atrocious village butcher, a fate even worse than death.

What follows is a dark but gorgeously written tale that had me captivated from beginning to end. As secrets slowly begin to be revealed, will the truth enable Edith to escape her fate? Or is she destined to live a life of oppression forever?

Edith’s strength of character as the story progressed was wonderful to see, with the other women of the village coming together to try to break free from their oppressors. Edith’s father, the cabinet maker, was an incredibly weak man who treated his daughter in such an appalling way it made my blood boil! But then the story moves in a direction I did not see coming, taking me completely by surprise as it moved towards its final, thrilling conclusion.

Oh my word, what a beautiful, dark and magical read The Snow Song is! Sally Gardner has written the perfect read for the festive season, especially if you like your stories dark and thought provoking with a magical twist.

Highly recommended.

I read this for a blog tour. 

This is a beautiful, magical fairy tale set somewhere in snowy Northern Europe, I could see elements of East of the Sun and West of the Moon, as well as modern feminist retellings of other fairy tales in Edith and her story. Which is how Edith's own stories work, weaving together the old and the new.

Edith is the only woman, who finds strength in the midst of terrible heartbreak, to stand against the butcher and his cruelty (he seems a Bluebeard figure, there's no explanation as to what happened to his previous wife) in the small village where fear, tradition and the elders (all men) hold sway.

Edith's bittersweet winter in the forest (where the East of the Sun... came through strongest for me) enables her to return to the village and start to put things right, with her father, for her friends.

Lyrical, moving and with the gentlest of hope for the future at its ending, this is a stunning new fairy tale for this winter and those to come.

This was one of the most spellbinding novels I have ever read. I am in complete awe of Sally Gardner and her astonishingly beautiful writing. Read it, I beg of you.  
It begins, with a hint of magic and a young girl falling in love. Edith has grown up surrounded by secrets and superstitions. A desire burns inside her for adventure and love. Then Demetrius enters her life and for the first time she sees exactly what she wants and a chance to escape from the confines of her small life with a drunken father.
But in the shadows of this story is the butcher. He has a hold over the people of Edith’s village. With an iron fist he controls with fear. His power and wealth unrivalled and he is a man who is used to getting exactly what he wants. And what he wants is Edith.

I read this wonderful story in one day. I was captivated from that very first line. The story held me under it’s spell. Edith is the most stunning creation. Such heart, such courage and I just had to read on to see if there was a happy ending somewhere for her. There is something of the fable about this story. It feels like a tale passed down from generation to generation. A story of a love that never dies. A story of hope, fear and the hold that superstitions can have over people. It is also a story of those who misuse their power, and reminds us that a monster can hold many forms. But ultimately it is a story about courage. The courage to stand up to those who seek to bring you to your knees, to destroy and to leave you lost without a voice. Yet, as Edith discovers, silence can hold the greater power.

This is without doubt, one of my books of the year.

Thank you so much to the lovely team at HQ Stories for inviting me to take part in this blog tour and for providing a digital copy via Netgalley. This is just too beautiful to stay on a device though so I shall be treating myself to a hardback copy for my forever shelves.

Is your life yours or is a revival of a folklore tale?
This story is like living in a tale, where all the characters have a magnetic force, for good or bad, making the story powerful and magic that will let you mesmerized with this powerful book.
This is the story of Edith, she lives with her alcoholic father in a small village controlled by elders and their closed minds.
Everything will change when she will meet Demetrius, a shepherd, they fall in love instantly, but as an outsider of the village no one sees their relation with good eyes and the butcher (Edith suitor) forces them to make a promise that maybe will not be possible, arranging a forced marriage.
This is a story about love, but told with delicacy and full of fables intertwined within the story.; It will make the reader impossible to stop reading.
The story is beautiful, full of twists and mysteries but modern and strong, never doubt the power of the words, they are more harmful than we think.
If you are looking for a story to fall in love and never forget this is the book you are searching; you’ll want to read again and again.
Ready to discover “The Snow Song”?

I love a dark fairytale and I was so attracted to the cover of this beautiful book.

Edith is the daughter of an alcoholic and like most people in their small village is indebted to the hideous butcher. He rules the village and pretty much always gets what he wants.

One day Demetrius arrives and him and Edith fall in love, they want to be married but the butcher makes Edith swear on the bible that if Demetrius does not return before the first snow then she will marry the butcher.

Demetrius is a shepherd and has to leave the village to tend his flock and you just know from the tension in the story that something bad is going to happen to him.

Edith is convinced he will return like he has promised but when he doesn’t the shock of what will happen to her turns her hair white and she no longer speaks. All the women in the village are married in a traditional gown but the butcher is insistent that she is married in a grand white gown which leads the villagers to say she will be cursed. I think at this point in the book that maybe a blessing for poor Edith.

The majority of the men in this book are really awful with the exception of Demetrius and Misha. As are Una and Vanda the butcher’s daughters. They reminded me of the ugly sisters in Cinderella. I loved the darkness of the story and the acceptance by the women that ‘Men will be Men was shocking. I found the fear that superstition holds over the villagers fascinating.

As the story progresses secrets start to be uncovered about it’s in inhabitants and the facade begins to fracture and truths are revealed and will Edith be able to escape her fate ?

This is a engrossing story and I couldn’t put it down, I loved the development of the characters and how the women try to overcome their oppression and how they begin to reveal their true feelings. One by one they come together to try to help Edith and even some of the men realise that the butcher has too much power over the village. Although Edith’s Father the cabinet maker was the character that evoked the biggest feelings for me. Weak, pathetic and greedy, how a father could treat a daughter in this way made me so angry.

The story takes an unexpected turn which I didn’t see coming and this was really really extraordinary and I loved it. Edith has such strength and she was an inspiration character in so many ways. My Nanny was called Edith so this made her even more special to me.

If you need to escape then this is perfect for transporting you away to this other land of myths and superstitions. A fantastic adult story which highlights some of the worse traits of humans, darkness but with beauty and an underlying feeling of hope.

There’s nothing like a snow-filled tale to make me hopeful for a white winter, even though we’re not close to that stage yet I do enjoy reading a book like this as the days get colder and darker, it fits the season perfectly.

I really enjoyed the setting in The Snow Song, the remote snowy village next to a mountain is a wonderful ambience for this kind of fable like story, with some hints of fairytale and magic it really helps to keep you entranced. There is a part of the book that, when I came across it, made me really think about how each reader would experience this a little differently…

"Could one snowflake tell the whole story of snow when each was individually made round a grain of dust? The same was true, she thought, of her grandmother’s stories. She’d told them round grains of truth and each became something different. If Edith was to write them down, all the snowflakes would be the same."

I feel like the fact that we go into this book without really knowing where it is or when it is means that we can create that part of the magic for ourselves even though the narrative remains the same.

This story is centred around the empowerment of women and how one little change can give others the courage to speak up and not conform to what has been prescribed for them. It highlights the ways traditions and religious beliefs can be skewed to oppress people and make them unquestioning.

Of course, the majority of the men in this story are the type that provoke instant anger, the ones that want to keep the women in their place and the ones that are too scared to do anything differently even if they do agree. I did like that, for the most part, they didn’t have names and were referred to by their profession: the butcher, the mayor, the priest; this did kind of add to their dehumanisation, luckily there were also some redeeming male characters who sought to change things even if they started in small ways.

Edith, the story’s main protagonist and the catalyst for the changes in the village, was an interesting character. She started off as an open-minded and hopeful character and then as the story progressed she became resilient with a quiet kind of defiance. I liked what happened with the romance between her and Demetrius, it’s hard to say much without giving away some of the story, but it was refreshing that it was a great love that found acceptance in its circumstances and I admired how Edith handled it.

There were, of course, a fair few female characters that change dramatically throughout the course of the story and end up creating a supportive community for the rest. I think though that the character who stood out the most other than Edith was Misha, I loved that he was someone who didn’t believe in himself at all and developed into this strong and resourceful character. The fact that he went against the butcher’s wishes and tried to help certain characters, even though that would have been dangerous, opened up a little space in my heart for him.

I only have one little thing about the book that I wasn’t keen on, the bloodless, there isn’t really all that much said about them in context to the story but they are referenced. The few times they are mentioned it is not, in my opinion, in any way that adds something to the story, perhaps it was to be a subtle indicator for something that I have completely missed the point of. I felt the threat of them was superfluous so it either should have been cut from the story or made a bit clearer why they were being used.

The Snow Song is an atmospheric, enchanting and empowering story full of heartbreak and wonder and perfect for winter reading.

The Snow Song is the most gorgeous of dark fairy tales, set in an isolated village where the word of the male elders and the weight of age-old superstitions keeps the people in check, especially the womenfolk.

Edith, in common with her fellow women, has fallen prey to the whims of the village butcher - a man who wields both his fortune and the pursuit of his desires at the expense of his neighbours and even his own family. He wants Edith... and therefore he must have her at all costs.

But Edith has fallen in love with an outsider - a man who appears to be a simple shepherd - and he promises to return for her before the first snows fall. And the consequences of their doomed love will come to affect the whole village.

This is the most magical tale about the importance of listening to others, of finding your own voice and making yourself heard. Sally Gardner weaves these themes beautifully through this novel by using the love story of Edith and her shepherd, which draws in all the villagers who have suffered at the hands of the butcher and his fellow elders, and proves the catalyst they need to bring about positive change in their lives.

Although the setting for this tale is one that takes us back in time, to a place far removed from the world we know, this is nonetheless, at heart, a tale of oppression, control, finding yourself and gathering the courage to take a stand against evil. There is a lot to take from this book about the modern world, which I found rather clever.

There is plenty of sadness to be endured in these pages, much of it quite difficult to read as the women of the village finally have to courage to share the truth about their experiences, but there is also much to make your heart soar too. The power of love, friendship, stories and music shines through and lead us to the most wonderful of endings, which made me shed more than a few tears - and the way Sally Gardner uses both the snow and the whispers of underlying magic to underpin this beautiful fable is simply wonderful. I loved it.

This is a fairy tale for adults.  A very short read, moving, sometimes sweet sometimes bitter. I loved the story and the writing. Highly recommended.
Thanks a lot to NG and the publisher for this copy.

Snow Song was a step back in time, almost to a Victorian fairytale as we entered the world of Edith and the small isolated village at the base of mountains where she lived. A world ruled by the Elders, a group of men who used myth and superstition to scare and manipulate the small enclave to their ways and their rules.

Gardners evil villain was the Butcher, a huge overbearing, crude and pompous man who lorded over not only his family, but the Elders and villagers. His betrothal to Edith became his obsession and, you hoped, his downfall. I loved that Gardner took him to the extreme, his cruelty and mindset shocking, but it served a purpose, as he became the moral of the story.

If the Butcher was our villain, then our heroine was Edith and what a beautiful character Gardner created. She had a mystical, ethereal feel about here, almost as if she floated on air with an aura that surrounded her, that acted as a magnet to those in the village. Edith’s love for the shepherd, Demitrious was all encompassing, until he failed to return, her voice muted and a life trapped by marriage to the butcher beckoned.

It was the skill at which Gardner used her muteness that impressed, the women who slowly opened up to Edith, expressed their fears, their opinions, safe in the knowledge that it wouldn’t be repeated. It was a catalyst that initiated change, little acts of rebellion that gathered pace, that forced men to take notice of the women, of their own actions and consequences.

It wasn’t just the characters that impressed as Gardner used the landscape and of course the snow, to great effect. The dark forest, the bleakness and danger of the isolated mountains and the snow, that brought sorrow and isolation. There were the old tales and superstitions that were both a comfort and a warning, beautifully interwoven into a narrative that lifted the novel out of the ordinary.

We also had the suppression of women, their isolation, their need to conform to a male dominated community who had very clear ideas as to their role, their voices drowned out. It was wonderfully interlaced within the narrative of the story, never overpowered but gently provoked the reader into thought. Gardner didn’t thrust them into sudden realisation but rather like a flower that slowly opens in the spring summer time, they opened their minds and found their voices.

Snow Song was made up of a myriad of layers yet at its heart it was simply beautiful story telling that captivated me as a reader and I loved it.

I thought this was a dark, whimsical, and utterly atmospheric read. It took turns I did not expect and Gardner made me fall in love with her characters. Everything was also done within such a perfect bleak wintry setting. I look forward to rereading this again and again, full review to come as part of the blog tour. Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the eARC.