#eowyn ivey

[virgin-martyr]

Like a rainbow trout in a stream, the girl sometimes flashed her true self to him. A wild thing glittering in dark water.

Eowyn Ivey, excerpt from The Snow Child

[aseaofquotes]

Eowyn Ivey, The Snow Child

[bangbangwhoa]

books I’ve read in 2025 📖 no. 023

Black Woods, Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivey

“I am loving you. As if love, once it came into existence, radiated backward and forward, encompassing all of time.”

[theinquisitxor]

February 2025 Reading Wrap Up

February always go by so quick, but when I look back to the books I read at the beginning of the month, it seems so long ago. Anyways, I read 8 books in February, which is a good amount for a short month! I'm happy with all that I read, and I'm looking forward to March and the spring 🌷

1.Carving Shadows into Gold (Forging Silver into Stars #2) by Brigid Kemmerer, 4.5/5 stars. I'd been waiting for 3 years to get my hands on this book, and it was one of my most anticipated releases for the year. I thought this was a good second book, and it's one of the few YA series I'm still actively reading and enjoying.

2.Black Woods, Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivey, 3.5/5 stars. Finally a new Ivey novel, and this one was pitched as a batb retelling. However, I don't think calling it a batb retelling is fair. It was still mostly a stark protrayl of life and dangers of living in the wilderness in Alaska. I enjoyed the beauty and danger of the Alaskan backcountry, the struggles of the characters, and the inevitable fate you realize the novel is slowly building up to.

3.Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde 3) by Heather Fawcett, 4/5 stars. The conclusion to a series that I've been loving each new installment. Unlike the previous books, this one takes place almost entirely in Faerie, and deals with Emily navigating faerie court, politics, and curses. I didn't love this one quite as much as the first two, but I was happy to see how one of my favorite series has ended.

4. Walden: Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau. I think I read a lot of nature literature, but this is one classic I never got around to reading, even though it's a seminal work of the genre. So I was glad to read it and see how it has influenced other work I've read.

5 & 6. She Who Became the Sun & He Who Drowned the World (Radiant Emperor Duology) by Shelly Parker-Chan, 4.5/5 stars. I've had this on my tbr for a while, but was a little hesitant about picking it up. However, I really enjoyed both books. I don't typically read darker war-focused fantasy, so this was a bit of a step out of my comfort zone, but it was well worth it. I loved the characters, the historical setting, the machinations and politics.

7. Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo, 5/5 stars. This was my third time reading this novel, and I read this via audiobook this time around. I would recommend, and I thought the narrators did an excellent job.

8. Wolf Tower (Claidi Journals #1) by Tanith Lee, 3/5 stars. This was my Random TBR Pick for the month of February, and a book that had been on my tbr since 2019. This is a middle-grade fantasy, and while I like the main character's sense of humor and wit, and I liked Lee's writing, I never really got into the story. I can see why people like these books, but it didn't really do much for me, so I won't be continuing.

That's a wrap for February! What I'm thinking for my March TBR:

reread Bloodmarked by Tracy Deonn

read Oathbound when it releases on the 4th

nonfiction: World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

start reading (rereading) The Naming by Alison Croggin. I've been wanting reread this series for many years. I might finally get to it now

Random TBR pick: Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier

[reds-poppy]

In the distance he heard the echoing calls of the cranes. Like sorrow, it occurred to him. A quivering, throaty keening.

Eowyn Ivey, Black Woods, Blue Sky, 2025

[ashadeintheshade]

In keeping with my Vibes of Alaska, winter, complicated romantic relationships, and the mysteries of the deep, dark, cold, I’m currently reading The Snow Child.

Eowyn Ivey has an enviable way with words. The novel doesn’t seem like a book as much as an open portal into a different world. You don’t notice her grammar or her word choice, you feel the cold of the Alaskan winter and hear the rush of the river beneath the ice.

I will check back with opinions when I finish the novel.

[freshlybrewedbookreviews]

All her life she had believed in something more, in the mystery that shape-shifted at the edge of her senses. It was the flutter of moth wings on glass and the promise of river nymphs in the dappled creek beds. It was the smell of oak trees on the summer evening she fell in love, and the way dawn threw itself across the cow pond and turned the water to light.

Eowyn Ivey (The Snow Child)

[desdasiwrites]

– Eowyn Ivey, The Snow Child