There are some stories that stir your soul so deeply that they haunt you—in the best way. The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden is one of those books. I rated the first novel in this trilogy a glowing 5 stars, and this second installment has more than earned the same. Katherine Arden has written a tale that sings like wind through winter branches—melancholic, sharp, magical, and utterly alive.
The story opens not with Vasya, but with her sister Olga, who left the wild unknown behind to take her place in the rigid order of nobility. It was painful—heartbreaking, even—to witness how tamed she has become. The life that was imposed on her, “the lot of women,” has broken her in quiet ways, and it was even more painful to watch her press that same fate onto her daughter. You can feel her daughter's spirit being slowly smothered beneath the weight of tradition and expectation, and I couldn’t help but ache for her.
As with The Bear and the Nightingale, this book weaves folklore, history, and myth into a living tapestry. It starts as a ghost story, threading mystery through every page—who is this? Is it a chyerti?—and as the plot unfolds, it blends the fantastical with the all-too-human.
The romance truly begins to unfold here, and it is both breathtaking and tragic. Spoiler ahead: Morozko begins to change—becoming mortal, becoming human—because of his love for Vasya. But she, scarred by a lifetime of control, betrayal, and abuse at the hands of men and the Church, reacts from a place of survival. She breaks his power, unable to understand the full weight of what he was offering. And he begins to fade.
That moment wrecked me.
It was a poetic metaphor for the way we sometimes destroy the very things we desire most—out of fear, confusion, or pain. We believe we're doing what’s right, what we must, only to later realize the damage we've caused. There is no undoing it. And that truth—hard and beautiful—sits at the heart of this book like frost on glass.
Their kiss towards the end left me breathless. Arden captured something raw and sacred in that moment:
“She had never been kissed before, not thus. Not long and—deliberately. She didn't know how—but he taught her. Not with words, no; with his mouth, his fingertips, and a feeling that did not have words. A touch, dark and exquisite, that breathed along her skin.”
This is what romance should feel like—charged, reverent, magnetic. Not the hollow, casual encounters passed off as “empowered” in so much modern media, but something transformative.
I’ll admit, the pacing in the beginning was slow. But if you know Arden’s rhythm, it’s part of the magic. Like winter itself, it takes time to settle in—but when it does, it takes root in your bones. And trust me: it is worth it. The moment we meet Vasya’s grandmother, I gasped out loud. That entire section turned the book from something good to something unforgettable. It’s one of those moments that makes you sit forward and devour the rest.
I’m also deeply invested in Vasya’s niece now (I wish I remembered her name!). Her presence is luminous, and the foreshadowing of her falling in love with a bird? I’m intrigued, nervous, hopeful, and totally obsessed. What does it mean? A chyerti like Morozko? Solovey, the horse-who-might-be-more? A spirit? A future love story blooming in the shadow of Vasya’s? I need to know.
What continues to astound me in this series is Arden’s portrayal of magick and the Sight. She doesn’t just invent a fantasy system—she captures the truth of animism and mysticism. The way she describes characters as rays of light or shifting shadows resonates with how real spiritual Sight actually works. It’s not about the physical, but the intuitive, the soul-seeing. Reading her words reminded me of how powerful perception is, and how sacred it is to trust your inner vision.
This book has inspired me deeply. So much so, I’ll be creating a video for my Priestess Guidance YouTube channel exploring how The Girl in the Tower portrays the Sight, what it means to see beyond the veil, and how to reclaim and trust your own magick.
In all, The Girl in the Tower is a stunning continuation of a series that speaks directly to my soul. A story of strength, sorrow, beauty, and becoming. Arden doesn’t just write books—she casts spells with ink and frost.
If you felt the call of the first book, follow it here. Even if the path is slow to start, it leads somewhere breathtaking.
And I, for one, am ready to follow it all the way into the fire.
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