Review: Hemlock & Silver
4/5 stars
Hemlock & Silver, by T. Kingfisher (2025)
This is somewhat of a retelling of Snow White, but really it's more that it draws inspiration from the tale, since most aspects are unique to Kingfisher. The building blocks are there - a young girl named Snow, a poisoned apple, an evil queen, and a mirror - but these individual pieces are rearranged into a new story.
Healer Anja is a self-described spinster (she's only in her mid-30's, though!) who specializes in poisons. In fact, she ingests them on the regular, in small doses, to help find discover cures. Her research has saved many local villagers' lives. Having heard of her work, the King makes a surprise visit to Anja's home with a request. His daughter Snow is sick, and he suspects some type of poison, but none of the doctors he has called to her side have been able to figure it out. He asks Anja to accompany him to a remote palace outside of the city where Snow is living, in the hopes that her extensive knowledge can save his daughter's life. He also confesses that he murdered the late Queen when he caught her cutting out the heart of their younger daughter, Rose. Unrelated though it may seem, this information will come into play later in the story.
With the help of brooding guardsman Javier, and a talking cat, Anja examines everything that could have come into contact with Snow, but can locate nothing that would cause the symptoms she suffers - nausea and vomiting and just general wasting-away. That is, until she finds 1.) Snow surreptitiously eating a mysterious apple in the gardens, and 2.) a hidden world behind/within the many mirrors in the palace.
Anja is a fun character - witty, delightfully grumpy and unapologetic, whip-smart when it comes to poisons while also being dreadfully dense about social interactions. Javier, the unassuming guardsman, grows on Anja (and the reader) slowly, and while there is a love-interest angle, it's very much in the background. I liked the word-building, though I think there are some unanswered (or half-answered) questions left at the end about the implications of the magic. Overall, a solid, entertaining little novel.
UP NEXT: What We Can Know, by Ian McEwan
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