Once upon a time there was a mirror. . . .

So begins this dark, unusual retelling of the story of Snow White by the writer reviewers have called "the Angela Carter of the fantasy field"--a whole novel based on a beloved story, turning it into a dark and sensual drama full of myth and magic.

Arpazia is the aging queen who paces the halls of a warlord's palace. Cold as winter, she has only one passion--for the mysterious hunter who courts the outlawed old gods of the woodland. Coira is the princess raised in the shadow of her mother's hatred. Avoided by both her parents and half forgotten by her father's court, she grows into womanhood alone . . . until the mirror speaks, and blood is spilled, and the forest claims her.

The tragic myth of the goddess Demeter and her daughter, Persephone, stolen by the king of the underworld, is woven together with the tale of Snow White to create a powerful story of mothers and daughters and the blood that binds them together, for good or ill. Black queen. White maid. Royal huntsman. Seven little folk who live in the forest. Come inside, sit by the fire, and listen to this fairy tale as you've never heard it told before.

Once upon a time there was a mirror, and a girl as white as snow. . . .

Amazon.com Review
After a hiatus of some years, the Fairy Tale series of novels by various authors, edited by Terri Windling, has made a welcome return. The first post-hiatus book is fantasist extraordinaire Tanith Lee's White as Snow, a retelling of Snow White darkly intertwined with the myth of Demeter and Persephone. If you're familiar with both Lee, winner of the August Derleth Award and several World Fantasy Awards, and Windling, also winner of several World Fantasy Awards, and the premier fantasy editor of modern times, then you would expect White as Snow to be a terrific novel. And you would be right.

In an alternate-history medieval Europe, the noble maiden Arpazia, raised in an isolated castle, finds herself the captive of the conquering general-king Draco. The only remnant of her former life is an exotic glass mirror possessed of witchy powers. She feels no connection to Coira, daughter of her forced marriage to the brutal Draco. She becomes the lover of a woodsman, Klytemno, who embodies the divine Hunter King in pagan rituals. Then Klytemno requires her to send her black-haired, snow-pale daughter Coira into the woods as a sacrifice.... --Cynthia Ward