White as Snow, by Tanith Lee

[othercat]

I tend to have a love-hate relationship with Tanith Lee’s writing. I find her to be very readable on occasion, but all of the rapes, craziness and death tend to stand between the plot of the book and my liking of it. White as Snow is part of Terri Windling’s Fairy Tale Series and the blurb declares that it is a “dark sensual retelling of Snow White,” and I would have to say that they were at least half right (which is to say, it is dark).

We begin the story with a girl named Arpazia. Arpazia is a noblewoman whose home is about to be destroyed by an invading army led by a warlord named Draco. Draco rapes Arpazia, finds Jesus and decides to marry her. Arpazia is pregnant, suffering from the trauma of having been raped and then married to her rapist and takes a dive off the deep end of insanity. She develops an obsession with an ornate mirror and completely rejects her baby when it is born. Since these are pseudo-medieval rubes, the entire palace decides that Arpazia is an evil witch and engage in victim-blaming.

The daughter grows up mostly forgotten by both parents (which is more or less a good thing since Arpazia is crazy and Draco is a stupid lump of talking meat). Her name is Candacis, though her nurses all call her Coira.

White as Snow