Hemlock & silver

Combining dark fairy tale aesthetics with a medical mystery plot, this utterly delightful Snow White riff from Hugo and Nebula Award winner Kingfisher (A Sorceress Comes to Call) transports readers to a New Mexicoesque kingdom of deserts, mesa houses, and saints with the heads of venomous snakes. Kingfisher's gift for charmingly kooky protagonists is on full display in healer Anja, an eccentric scholar of antidotes and obsessive problem solver who can't resist the puzzle posed to her by the king, who seeks a cure for the mysterious illness plaguing his daughter, Princess Snow. The king suspects poison, but Anja can't find any trace of it--until she catches Snow eating a strange, metallic-looking apple. Anja and her bodyguard, Javier, investigate, finding their way into a bizarre mirror world that may hold the key to Snow's illness--or may lead to their deaths. The diagnostic mystery at the heart of this meticulously crafted secondary world fantasy makes for a refreshingly novel plot structure, and Kingfisher wows with her ability to effectively worldbuild using just a few choice details that then come together to create an almost dizzyingly satisfying climax. Meanwhile, the monstrous mirror-gelds are a Lovecraftian revelation and Anja's feline sidekick, Grayling, will steal hearts. This is Kingfisher at her best. Agent: Helen Breitwieser, Cornerstone Literary. (Aug.)