Spinning Silver

How it reads

Spinning Silver is fantasy (retelling, specifically), and its dominant mood is hopeful. Whatever it puts its people through, it believes things can get better. The pace is moderate — neither a page-turner nor a slow burn — so it holds up whether you read it in long sittings or short ones.

It's set in an invented world, in the historical past, told in the third person across several viewpoints. Its central concerns are identity, nature and family. In weight it sits in the middle: substantial without being heavy going.

It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending resolves happily. At 465 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.