Sisters Liba and Laya live on the outskirts of a forest in Ukraine with their mother and father, and neither have never felt like they truly fit in with the rest of the town. When a stranger appears at the door one night, both sisters find out some magical secrets about their parents and who they themselves truly are. Left alone for the first time, with dark magic and sinister strangers threatening them, the girls have to either fight or accept their instincts and truly transform.

This is a beautiful magical book set in a forest in our own world but infused with the magic of fairytales - particularly those of Russian, German and Yiddish origin. I really loved the subtle hints of magic in this book and the true strength it took both Liba and Laya to accept themselves, and the journey to get there.

The sisterly relationship is the strongest one in this book, and I did really love Liba's devotion to Laya though on the other hand Laya was quite annoying, selfish and rash a lot of the time. There really wasn't any time given to the girls' parents leaving and basically everything going crazy - I'm pretty sure it was literally the next day that Laya began moon eyes at Fedir. I did enjoy the slower, sweet relationship between Liba and Dovid.

The book felt quite slow for a while, and some scenes and problems appeared to repeat themselves constantly. I would have liked the swans and bears to come into the book a lot sooner as I would have just liked more time to get to know them.

Overall a nice book and an enjoyable read but I needed to have a bit more substance and meat to the story I think. I enjoyed the overall quality of writing and will read Rena Rossner again.