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by Patricia A. McKillip Patricia McKillip is a gifted, poetic author. Everything she writes is done with grace and elegance. Usually, McKillip’s favorite realm is deep into fantasy worlds, bringing to life seers, dragons, and fairies. But her latest novel, Solstice Wood, puts modern day characters into a contemporary setting that has gateways into other realms. Like "The Witches of Junket," a selection in her short story collection, Harrowing the Dragon, this novel deals with a group of women (this time in a sewing circle) who are working a binding that they are only marginally aware of to close these gateways. It has been done so for generation upon generation in a small town in the middle of the mountains somewhere. The state is never disclosed, but the reader gets the impression it is in the East somewhere. Sylvia Lynn returns home for her grandfather’s funeral and finds that she has been left Lynn Hall and its legacy, the working of the Fiber Guild that she has never known about. As she discovers more about her family and the horrors that she is expected to keep at bay, Sylvia begins to doubt her family’s sanity and her own if she stays. Solstice Wood is an exciting read with layers of small town secrets and relationships. The intersection of reality and myth is deftly woven, drawing the reader into the fantastic, believing its reality wholeheartedly. Using multiple points of view, McKillip draws each chapter from the eyes of one of five characters, with bits of the truth revealed in each telling. The story progresses to a hold-your-breath ending that is satisfying and beautiful. Through the revelations, there is the constancy of McKillip’s lyricism and her vision of other worlds. Solstice Wood is highly recommended. |
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Solstice Wood