4.5 stars 
 I really love this story, it's super whimsical and it's everything I wanted Uprooted to be (but it wasn't). I loved Vasya the main character, she is such a strong and interesting woman to hear about. 
 I had one main gripe about it : around the beginning Vasya's father gets maried again, the king (tsar ?) decides his wife for him. Anyway, the new wife keeps crying and obviously doesn't want to be maried fo different reasons we know about but Pyotr (Vasya's father) has sex with her anyway so you knw, conjugal rape, but that I can get, it is 14th century russia after all, just a mention of the fact that it happens would have been enough. however there's a point when there's something among the line of : he went back to her bed with eagerness but each time she met him, not with anger or laments that he might have managed, but with baffling silent weeping. 
 What the...? Like, if she had been angry he would have dealt with her better ? EW. I hated Pyotr after that and so I couldn't enjoy some things that happened afterwards. 
 Also, I found some unconsistancy in the way Morozko acts. First he really needs that necklace to be given to Vasya but then once she has it he doesn't want her to do anything ? I got a bit confused by all that part. 
 Anyway, those were my two main and only problems with this book, everything else was lovely and whimsical and I loved the way the author portrayed all those characters (minus Pyotr). The way the story was told, as a russian folk tale was really beautiful and intriging. It really seems like Arden knows about Russian history, folklore and language, sometimes it felt like reading a russian author with all those names and the character who actually have different way to be named (Vasya is also Vasilisa Petrovna for instance). A very enjoyable read and something I'll most likely reread one day. 
 Also the cover (I have the british cover) is abolutly beautiful.