An Apprentice to Elves by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette
“No one is simply one thing in An Apprentice to Elves, the ways no one is simply one thing in this hard life. The opening is deliberate, setting you up for the rising action of the climax in a way that means the novel could probably stand alone (which is no mean feat, as this review probably indicates). This is a rich, complicated, textured world, with a myriad of different people, different creatures, different cultures, coming together in both a hard clash and a harder understanding. This is the kind of fantasy that makes you slow down, sound out the unforgiving consonants of a foreign culture, so you can hear those uncomfortable vowels, both the familiar and the alien. We don’t have to be just one thing, but several, and in fruitful opposition. Winter isn’t coming. It’s already here.” — Barnes & Noble SFF Blog