Winterkeep

Kristin Cashore writes fantasy at exactly the level that I prefer–where there's a note at the beginning saying that she's using days and months of the Gregorian calendar as a shorthand and we should just assume they're “translations” from whatever calendar they use in these fantasy countries. You know what? THANK YOU Kristin, I absolutely have no interest in learning fake fantasy months. (I'm aware that other fantasy readers are extremely interested in that level of fantasy, and to you I say: you have plenty of other books, nerds.)

Kristin Cashore uses the time she saves on not defining fantasy months by developing characters and their relationships and that's the shit I'm here for! I saw some reviews saying the telepathic foxes are silly and honestly, can't relate. Love them.

Anyway, I spent more time talking about who this book is not for than I did on explaining why it is for me. If you liked the others in the Graceling series I don't see why you wouldn't like this. I re-read the 3 previous books in preparation for this one; I'm not sure that was necessary since this is branching off into a new ~realm~ so it's a little bit like a reboot. But I enjoyed re-reading them.