Aria, the mischievous foster-daughter of the Bone Witch, comes across a French knight wandering in her forest. They fall in love, but have no time to luxuriate in it. Numerous armies are massed against them, for the knight has stolen the Firebird's Egg, the curse and luck of Russia's rulers. Aria and Sir Roye go on a quest to dispose of the egg, but are separated almost immediately. They each have their own adventures, but are finally reunited and manage to throw the egg into a pit of fire.

It's not a good book. The author regularly jumps from one character's perspective to another's within the space of two sentences. Whenever he gets bored with a plot, he inserts a randomly chosen deus ex machina to sweep the characters off to the next bit. In the first few chapters, Robertson y Garcia writes detailed characterizations for Aria and Sir Roye. As the chapters go on, however, he loses interest in their particulars and focuses on their sex lives instead. There is a lot of sex, and it's written in a rather prurient way...it felt gratuitous and a bit exploitive.
( )

I loved the setting and a lot of the story, but ultimately the frequent references to the the heroine and other female characters as teens were too disturbing in the context of the sex scenes with a male character whose age was never given but who was clearly an adult, ruining my enjoyment of the other elements of this book. ( )

I'd picked this up to try another fantasy writer, particularly one from Tor Publishing. There were things I liked a great deal about the book, such as the setting -- Markovy lies just beyond the Iron Wood, east of Europe. And has werewolves and other baddies. This meant that there was some grounding in our world (Sir Roye de Roye is from France, and has the knack of always choosing the losing side) and there were references to other European countries that I know and have visited in my own once-upon-a-time.

Aria and Sir Roye are on a quest to return the firebird's stolen egg.... etc, etc. I found that though there were charming scenes and moments, I was just a little weirded out by the continual reference of Aria (and other girls) as teenagers, sexually involved with adult men and women. It colored my view of the story. Lolita of the fantasy world, I guess. (Not that the scenes were out of place for the story or "time period" -- just my own discomfort thinking of Aria the age of my granddaughters, romping around with some adult.)

I did like the Russian/Ukrainian fairy tale aspects. The Bone Witch had a strong Baba Yaga vibe. ( )