Searching for “Naomi Novik”

Every ten years the wizard takes a girl from the valley, and this time, to everyone's surprise, he takes Agnieszka — clumsy, perpetually grubby, and quietly furious about it. The magic here smells of woodsmoke and turned earth, and the corrupted Wood at the valley's edge is genuinely creeping. Read it when you want a fairy tale with mud under its nails.

A moneylender's daughter is too good at turning silver into gold — so the cold king of the winter folk comes to claim her for it. Three women, told in turn, scheme their way through a frozen Lithuania of ledgers, debts and bargains that bite. Read it deep in January, with the heating on and the dark pressing at the window.