I don't know if you've noticed, but I like fairy tales. Good ones, with "hard" fairies.

It doesn't hurt that the "reiz, sen senos laikos"The typical beginning for a fairy tale in Latvian; once, a long, long time ago. is convincing. It also helped to distance me from the domestic abuse that was in the book, letting me hope that things might not be as bad nowadays.

I found it a bit weird listening to names pronounced in English that I would pronounce differently, but nice to have a fairy tale set somewhere more unusual.

It had also been a while since I last heard a book with several points of view as the mode of telling the story, and I love getting into peoples heads like that.

Very, very much a treat for me, this book was.