Thank you netgalley for providing the free ARC in return for an honest review.

So much magic here! Special siblings Isaac and Bellatine Yaga inherit a strange house from an ancestor they never met nor know much about, Baba Yaga. This small house has chicken legs and can move around. Immediately, Bellatine feels a connection and wants to make it her home. Isaac insists she buy out his part of the house using the money they make by taking the retired family puppet show, The Drowning Fool, on the road. Soon they learn a spooky man who causes death and destruction in his wake wants the house, and the siblings must come to terms that their gifts are not just strange powers they were born with, but also inherited from the pain of their Russian ancestry. Such a unique story that builds upon Russian folklore and pogrom history.

As a librarian, I enjoyed and appreciated the message of this story:

"If a story does its job, it doesn’t ever end. Not really. But it can change. This is the nature of folktales. They shift to fit each teller. Take whatever form suits the bearer best. What begins as a story of sorrow can be acknowledged, held like a sweetheart to the chest, rocked and sung to. And then, it can be set down to sleep. It can become an offering. A lantern. An ember to lead you through the dark." (Last paragraph of story ARC edition).