The Bear and the Nightingale (2017)

Arden's fourteenth-century Rus is a place where getting through winter depends on food, fire and the household's protective spirits. Vasya's attention to those beings conflicts with the religious authority arriving in her village. The friction between Christian practice and older beliefs is reworked into a fairy-tale conflict, rather than offered as a complete account of medieval religion. The family story makes a clear entrance; familiarity with Russian folklore adds echoes rather than prerequisites.