White as Snow (Fairy Tale Series)
After a hiatus of some years, the Fairy Tale series of novels by various authors, edited by Terri Windling, has made a welcome return. The first post-hiatus book is fantasist extraordinaire Tanith Lee'sWhite as Snow, a retelling ofSnow Whitedarkly intertwined with the myth of Demeter and Persephone. If you're familiar with both Lee, winner of the August Derleth Award and several World Fantasy Awards, and Windling, also winner of several World Fantasy Awards, and the premier fantasy editor of modern times, then you would expectWhite as Snowto be a terrific novel. And you would be right.In an alternate-history medieval Europe, the noble maiden Arpazia, raised in an isolated castle, finds herself the captive of the conquering general-king Draco. The only remnant of her former life is an exotic glass mirror possessed of witchy powers. She feels no connection to Coira, daughter of her forced marriage to the brutal Draco. She becomes the lover of a woodsman, Klytemno, who embodies the divine Hunter King in pagan rituals. Then Klytemno requires her to send her black-haired, snow-pale daughter Coira into the woods as a sacrifice....--Cynthia Ward