Wind Daughter
Joanna Ruth Meyer’s dreamy, enchanting novel Wind Daughter follows a beekeeping teenager through her atypical coming of age.
Satu was born out of time, and feels out of place, in her cool mountain village. Her father, who was once the North Wind, made a bargain with a devious enchantress to become mortal and marry her mother, but the hidden costs of that trade took the family generations away from their origins.
Satu is comfortable within the confines of their cozy cottage, but not far beyond it; she’d rather tend to her bees in high meadows than mingle among the townspeople, whose heartaches and joys weigh on her empathetic soul. She cares “about everything. Crushed flowers and spilt honey. …the plight of a character in a story.” And then the implications of her parents’ past bargain catch up to them. The world starts unmaking itself around Satu. To save all whom she loves, and all that she knows, she has to venture beyond her mountain and gather together the scattered strands of her father’s former magic.
The book’s world building is singular and strange, transforming every observation into a line of poetry, from the ice that forms around Satu’s foes to the threads of time: “a sea, a symphony, a sky full of stars.” She traverses meadows and skies to collect the North Wind’s magic, finding solace among her mother’s reindeer-herding people, who recall her in folktale form, and seeking the company of a ghostly boy whom her generosity might bring back. There’s love and new purpose waiting for her if she succeeds—but the task is unlike any recorded in the stories of her world.
Weaving an uncommon origin story into a breathtaking tale of self-acceptance, Wind Daughter is an unmissable entry into a fantasy series.
Reviewed by
Michelle Anne Schingler
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