WINTER ROSE
By Patricia McKillip
Atom (Time Warner UK) - November 2002
ISBN 1904233074 PB
Teenage - Romance/Fantasy

Reviewed by Rachel A Hyde, MyShelf.com
Buy a US || UK Copy


This novel won the World Fantasy Award, which will probably say more about its quality than any review. If you like fantasy, but think that there must be more to it than Tolkein-esque trilogies, then perhaps this eerie romance might be what you are looking for. Rois lives with her father and practical older sister, Laurel, in a village that seems to embody the very essence of village-ness, complete with gossiping goodwives and a blacksmith. She is a wild child of nature, running barefoot through the woods and collecting herbs for the apothecary, the despair of her family who wish she would grow up and be more like her sister who is marrying a stolid, down-to-earth farmer.

Everything changes when Rois glimpses the beautiful youth Corbet Lynn, come to restore the great house that his family once lived in. But the Lynn family are best remembered for the curse that fell upon them when Corbet's father killed his own father fifty years ago and ran away. Now it seems their dark heritage is coming back to cause trouble for everybody in the village.

If you like robust fantasies with lots of monster-bashing and people going on quests then this probably won't appeal, for exciting it is not. But if you are looking for a more thoughtful, poetic read that seems to be as in touch with nature and a certain wild magic, then you will find all these things here and more. Told by Rois herself who is in love with and fascinated by the handsome and otherwordly Corbet, this is a tale with as many layers as an onion that deserves to be read slowly and savored. I can't think of anything else to compare it with, so it also gets full marks for originality. This is a book more for girls than boys and a book to sink into on a dark winter's evening.

Check out the website at www.atombooks.co.uk

© MyShelf.Com. All Rights Reserved