#BlogTour ‘The Whisper Of Stars’ by Cristin Williams

A monastery turned political prison.

A cipher inked in blood.

When anarchist poet Katya Efremova is transferred to the prison colony on Solovetsky Island, she finds an enigma among her returned possessions – a blood-stained book containing a cipher left by her murdered mother, written on the day she died.

Following her mother’s clues, Katya begins to unravel a centuries-old mystery woven into the history of Solovetsky Island. Finding the island’s legendary power might be the key to overthrowing the Bolshevik regime, but Katya wasn’t sent to Solovetsky by chance.

The head of the government’s spy network is watching, and there will be no hope of a free Russia if he takes hold of the magic hidden beneath the White Sea snow.

Hugest of thanks to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers for the blogtour invite, and publishers Gollancz for the gifted review copy of Cristin Williams debut adult fantasy novel, ‘‘The Whisper Of Stars’

It is available in gorgeous hardcover, audiobook, and e-book formats from all good bookstores.

I devoured this book, shivering under a blanket with a million cups of coffee as Cristin spirits you away to both the past, and an icebound island in Bolshevik era Russia.

The notion that armies and politicians have experimented with the supernatural and the occult is something which has been explored in books such as ‘The Spear’ by James Herbert  and all encompassing new obsession, ‘IT: Welcome To Derry‘, so I had no issue believing that Russians were conducting secret experiments during the post tsar era, in the hope of maintaining rule through fear.

The title refers to a note that one of the protagonists, Katya, finds scribbled into her poetry notebook, by her mother, a murdered revolutionary.

It refers to a Yakut belief that anything spoken during this meteorological phenomenon , would result in your words being frozen as they were spoken, falling to the ground and in  spring, the thaw would release these words into waiting ears.

Katya has minimal possessions after being snatched from a boarding school where she was being made to spy on the daughters of the bourgeoise.

The book begins by introducing Katya as trapped and being made to force her powers onto other trapped , human subjects, using mind control as a weapon , with the promise of rest and food as a reward.

However, her supernatural, witchy abilities are thrown into the pale by Subject 30, Dmitri, or Dima, who turns into a bear and attacks the doctors and soldiers maintaining the ‘safety’ of the  experiments.

Both are trapped by the magic which could bring them freedom, and the ability to fight back against the revolutionaries who promised freedom, but, instead, imposed under Lenin’s rule, even more stringent living conditions.

An iron ring around Dima’s neck and bruised finger marks around Katya’s, rob them of their agency (Dima’s shape shifting and the Katya’s verbalisation of her spells) and allows them to be ‘safely’ transported to Solovetsky Iskland, where an ancient, abandoned monastery has been commandeered as a prison/experimentation laboratory.

Ice bound, physically bound and carrying the weight of generational trauma, both Dima and Katya are seeking answers for their family curses whilst trying to bring down this restrictive regime from the inside.

A beautifully realised , historical and fantastical epic, this sweeps you up with both the action and the revolving narrators.

Mixing real life figures such as Gleb Boki, with well established fantastical elements, creates a timely narrative to publish whilst authenticity and truth are valuable ideals, but so hard to come by. This was a fantastic read with extraordinary talent, heart and scope. I absolutely loved it!

Cristin Williams is the author of historical fantasy novels for adults and kids. Her adult debut, The Whisper Of Stars’, will be published in 2025 by Orion, under the Gollancz imprint.

Cristin was born in Japan while her parents were working as Russian-English translators for the US military. She spent her early adulthood travelling the world while working in the non-profit sector, and she now lives in Belgium with her Flemish husband and four daughters. When not writing, you’ll find her studying history, photographing castles, or exploring the tangled forest of the Belgian Ardennes.

Links-https://www.cristinwilliams.com/