Deep in the Winter Snow of Russia

I am currently reading The Wolf Princess by Cathryn Constable. It is a very wintry book that is not quite magical, but has that beautiful winter feeling about it. For me, that's magic enough.

We start off in dreary London in the beginning of the book. Three girls, Delphine, Marianne, and orphaned Sophie share a room in a boarding school there, but soon find themselves accepted on a trip to Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Sophie, the story's heroine, is most excited about this trip. She has always dreamed of snow instead of rainy London. Her father used to tell her mysterious stories about a winterland, a strange girl, and a wolf.
But on the train ride to Saint Petersburg, things get flipped upside-down. The girls are suddenly dropped off at an abandoned station in the middle of a blizzard. They seek shelter in a nearby hut, and wait there for the next train.
A train does come, but not one they were expecting. The three friends are whisked off to a winter palace where a princess has been waiting for them.
Sophie is immediately in the center of the princess's attention. Sophie is flattered at first, but becomes confused. A lone white wolf prowling the woods, a lost diamond necklace, and the winterland that somehow seems familiar.

I haven't finished the book yet. It's intriguing, but also slightly boring. I'll let you know how it turns out.

By the way, that Keeper of the Lost Cities book I mentioned in my last post? Don't read it. Sure, it started off harmless enough. It was funny, yet mysterious. Towards the end, I started to feel like something wasn't quite right. Then the author finally decided to answer all the questions. Yeah...not right. Just think 'false gospel'.
No, I didn't end up finishing that book, and I'm glad. My curiosity almost won over, but I closed the cover.
It's those kind of books that you just know you shouldn't be reading. You may try to fluff it off as 'not that bad' or 'could be worse'. I think this was the first book where that happened to me. I can't think of any other word to describe it except scary.

On that note, happy Monday!