By Meera Trehan (pub. Walker Books, Nov 2025)
Cunning stops in front of her. The Princess exhales as she waits for it to go.
Instead, it takes another step forward. Two arm’s-lengths away.
What is going on? It’s supposed to know her. It’s supposed to leave. Is it confused by the extra tools on her back? Or is it distracted by the Mists?
Her mind flicks back to last night, the foot, the hand. Please don’t come back now.
Princess Karina lives in her kingdom of Mistmir, a land of perpetual Snow due to an unwise wish. Every day she goes out digging, looking for something, anything that could give her a start on how to undo it.
Then one day she finds something – or rather, something finds her. A girl, Ela, has made her way through the Mists that surround the land. They each need something from the other, but what price are they willing to pay for it?
Snow focuses on two girls, the same age but different in personality and temperament. The Princess is the heir to the Kingdom of Mistmir, currently ruled by her father the King. Some time before the story starts, she made an unfortunate wish, though the exact nature of it isn’t revealed until later in the book.
Every day she goes out to dig the unending Snow, looking for some kind of sign. It’s here that Ela finds her. Ela has accidentally come through the Mists, but has no intention of leaving – not when she discovers that the Princess in front of her is the same one from the cover of The Snow Princess, a book that her mum used to read to her.
Her mum suddenly locked the book away however, and now refuses to let Ela read it. The Princess offers to help her find her answers, if she comes to the Palace with her. Unbeknownst to Ela, the Princess believes that she can help undo the unfortunate wish, if she can get Ela to her father.
So we follow these two teens as they make their way across the snowy landscape. The story takes place almost entirely in the Kingdom of Mistmar (except certain flashbacks set in the real world). The girls need to make their way through it to the castle, and it is not a short trek! It’s not exactly the adventure that you might expect; it’s both simpler, and more complicated than it might at first seem, in a good way.
The Princess is a troubled character. She’s a real spoiled brat at times, especially in the flashbacks, but it’s mostly when she’s feeling hurt. She’s even younger at those points (she’s 13 in the present), and often doesn’t understand her feelings or how to handle situations.
Meanwhile, in our world, Ela has had a falling out with her friends, and is feeling neglected by her parents who are more focused on their work as hydrologists. She’s feeling just as lost and alone as the Princess, though for different reasons, and her self-esteem has taken a massive blow as a result.
The first meeting between the two is realistically disappointing for Ela; the Princess is standoffish and formal, due to her training and her focus on her chore, while Ela desperately wants to ask questions but is painfully awkward. As the story progresses, they talk more, but both of them are still holding back things.
The chapters switch between Ela and the Princess depending on what’s happening and who we need to focus on. I always enjoy varying POVs so you can see what different characters are thinking, and since it’s not alternating one-to-one, there’s no awkwardly timed cut-offs. Each scene is given the time it needs, even if this is over a few chapters.
The story is written in seven parts, and numbers over 50 chapters. That may feel intimidating at first, but some of them are quite short (at least one is literally a single page), which does a great job of keeping the pace moving.
I want to give a quick shoutout to the UK hardback, which is gorgeous. The stylish image on the front is in contrasting blues, pink, white and reflective silver. It comes without a dust jacket (I don’t mind this; I tend to take them off when reading anyway), allowing the shiny silver to stand out against the blues to give a chilly, wintery feeling.
I wouldn’t call it a scary book, but there are definitely some darker moments; some things that you see coming, while other reveals are more of a surprise (I distinctly remember exclaiming “no!” out loud at a certain point). None of the terror comes from sudden action though, rather from slowly building up the tension in a way that makes it impossible to look away.
Without spoilering anything, there is a feeling of tragedy about the situation. The circumstances for the wish are quite emotional, and the consequences are pretty grim. The more you learn about the Kingdom, the more you realise that the wish is only part of its problems though.
I really enjoyed those moments of realisation, when something came into focus or clicked into place. It gave the story a real depth; we’re used to having “odd couple” adventure books, but this felt like something else, something more unusual.
The listed reading age is 9-12, and I agree with this – there’s some excellent themes of being true to and loving yourself that I think are important for kids this age, as well as forgiveness and looking towards the future. This is Trehan’s second book, and I’ll be keeping my eye out for the first one now!
If you want to journey through the Snow of Mistmir, you can grab a copy of Snow at the link below.
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Looking for more fantasy stories? You can check out some of our previous book reviews here.
