All Hallows Reads - Grishaverse Fairy Tales

Let’s start the spookiness with some fairy tales, shall we?

Well, I say fairy tales. They’re folktales from the world of Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse . Now, I only done two (and not the whole collection from The Language of Thorns), which were released individually – The Too-Clever Fox and Little Knife. Both I did via audiobook from local library and both have the same feel to it so merging their write-ups together.

Companion folk tales to novels Siege and Storm and Ruin and Rising, The Too-Clever Fox is about a fox who has escaped traps all his life. But just because you avoid one trap, doesn’t mean you will escape the next. While Little Knife is about a young woman whose beauty causes discord in her town that her family makes plans to have her wed. But plans will go awry, like the turning of the current in a river…

This felt like a really nice place to start with my All Hallow’s Reads, especially since I am going through a spate of quitting reads a few chapters in because I’m not in the mood (at the time of writing this, I stopped reading The Kingdom of Sweets by Erika Johansen as I couldn’t warm to the writing style [plus, even though this has a creepy feel to it, it is very Christmas] and I quit my library audiobook of Terry Pratchett’s Pyramids as it wasn’t what I expected when I started and I realised, very quickly, that I didn’t want this but I wanted Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg. So, yes, I am tackling one of their novels that I haven’t read yet…).

So, two short stories that are only half an hour listening each? Perfect. Hopefully, I thought, this will be the kick up the backside I need.

And it was, though I do admit that I prefer Little Knife over The Too-Clever Fox. Not by much, but still. But were whimsy fairy tales that both have morals at their dark heart and fits the world of Shadow and Bone and Six of Crows nicely.

A lovely bite-size treat to get into the Halloween season. Though, I might not be returning to this world any time soon, it does make me very excited for Leigh’s upcoming historical fantasy, The Familiar, which will be out early next year…