Girl in the Tower & The Winter of the Witch

Have you ever read a book so good you get angry? Why can't all books (and series) be this good? Also, when is her new book coming out? Crap she's writing a children's series. Why do the children get all the good things? Luckily she is super young so she can keep writing. Writing books for me. ALL FOR ME. I've read plenty of fantasy books this year and these were the best I've read in years. It's like when you watch TV and none of the shows are funny and you wonder if you are depressed and then HBO's Barry comes along and so you quit therapy.
    
Girl in the Tower and The Winter of the Winter Witch are books two and three in this fantastic Winternight Trilogy.  Katherine Arden manages to incorporate real historical events, old school Russian folklore and some modern sensibilities without it being crazy anachronistic. Rebelling against a crushing patriarchal system?  Answer, witches. It's always witches. 

One thing you should note is that I am kind of a sucker for talking animals. Behemoth from Master and Margarita and, well any talking animal.  It's a serious
book but then it has *shakes fists excitedly* talking horses. Horses don't talk they use mental telepathy, duh, they can't speak Russian because they have those giant Tony Robbins teeth. You can only hear them if you are a witch.

Horses and witches are sassy. I cannot recommend this series enough if you remotely like historical fantasy. 

Let's do this fall variation on a Moscow Mule, which seems appropriate: 2 oz of each: cranberry juice, vodka and lime juice and add to 3 ounces of ginger beer.  Add some fresh or frozen cranberries as a garnish if desired.