Katherine Arden: The Girl in the Tower

Katherine Arden’s The Girl in the Tower continues the story of Vasya, rebellious and half-magical wild girl, in the very patriarchal land of feudal Muscovy. Vasilisa Petrovna, the daughter of a country boyar and his first wife, herself the child of a woman thought of as at least half witch, has always seen the spirits and ghosts that live in countryside and in households. From her childhood she has held the attention of the immortal spirit known as Morozov, the winter-king, the one who comes for the dying. Alone, cast out by her village after the death of her father and the accusations of a maddened priest who both fears and lusts after her strangeness, Morozov has gifted her with a horse out of legend and provisions and gold enough for her to travel the world - for a girl like Vasya there can never be peace in marriage or convent, the only two respectable choices for a woman of her time and place.

In her early travels, Vasya encounters the horrors of burnt-out villages and stories of girls taken by bandits to be sold. When she impulsively tracks the bandits with the help of the household spirit of one if the kidnapped girls, she stumbles into a vast plot to destroy her kin, the rulers of Muscovy. Forced to conceal her identity and pretend to be a boy, Vasya faces bandits, ghosts, Tatars, horrified priests, outraged siblings and vengeful princes, and a deathless minster who seeks in a girl of her grandmother’s bloodline the restoration of his powers.

And survives. Vasya’s spirit carries the story once more, with her courage and determination to live life in her own terms.

Elizabeth Bear: Stone Mad

Stone Mad is the second work of fiction by Elizabeth Bear to feature Karen Memery, a former prostitute and temporary US Marshall, and her wife Priya Swati. Retired from the hospitality industry and ready to embark on married life on a horse ranch purchased with the reward money from their previous service to the US government, Karen and Priya are out for a fancy evening on the town in not-particularly-exotic Rapid City when they are drawn into an adventure involving table-tapping, poltergeists, spiritualism, illusionists and a few actual supernatural creatures.

This is a delightful western steampunk fantasy romp, complete with some very serious meditations on the responsibilities of being in love.