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Read right after re-reading her earlier fairytale novel, Uprooted, and this one is better and more complex, both more historically specific (the status of Jewish moneylenders as related to the Rumplestiltskin myth, the class dynamics of various towns and villages in an alternate Eastern Europe) and more conventionally fairytale-ish, with actual faeries (not called faeries, but a kind of wintry fae called the Staryk) and a cranky demon.

Couldn't stop reading.

Very engaging rework of fairytale ideas without ever strictly retelling source material. The main character's magical arc is a tiny bit Mary Sue but there's so much else going on (predatory forests, possession, court politics, Eastern European village customs) that it's forgivable, and the whole thing is beautiful, harsh, and immersive.

This was so excellently unsparing about the lives of spinsters in early Victorian England, and so intriguing about the fossil hunting, both the "science" and the business. Highly recommended.

This was a really likable collection if you like anthologies, with a lot of range and also a lot of dinosaurs, although Ursula K Le Guin's contribution as usual overshadowed everything else.