Description
From Publishers Weekly Woods-wise and free-spirited, Rois Melior is the opposite of her sensible sister, Laurel. But both Rois, who narrates, and Laurel fall under the spell of the stranger who enters their world. Decades ago, according to village gossip, Tearle Lynn murdered his father and mysteriously disappeared. Now Tearle's son, Corbet, has come home to rebuild crumbling Lynn Hall. Despite her attraction to Corbet, Rois is warned by her otherworldly senses that he is not what he seems. As Laurel falls hard for Corbet, Rois searches for the truth about the Lynns, but the answers she finds lead only to more questions. When Corbet disappears, Laurel begins to sicken and fade. To save her sister as well as Corbet, Rois will have to come to terms with the secret of her own changeling identity. The pace here is deliberate and sure, with no false steps; the writing is richly textured and evocative. McKillip (The Book of Atrix Wolf, and winner in 1975 of a World Fantasy Award for her novel The Forgotten Beasts of Eld) weaves a dense web of desire and longing, human love and inhuman need. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Wild and free-spirited Rois Melior finds Corbett Lynn rebuilding his grandfather's house in the woods. Soon her engaged sister, the practical and domestic Laurel, has fallen for Corbett. When Corbett disappears, Rois travels during sleep between the woods and another shadow world to find him. McKillip's (The Book of Atrix Wolfe, Ace, 1995) lyrical imagery infuses this coming-of-age story with intrigue in a world of nature. Highly recommended for fantasy collections.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist The latest from this distinguished writer is a curiously intimate fantasy about two sisters, one a homebody and the other free spirited, and a young man afflicted with an ancestral curse and a haunted estate. He touches the lives of both sisters, and they follow him into a world of love and dreams--or are they nightmares? And if they are nightmares, is there a road back? The story is well crafted and intriguing, McKillip's prose is as good as ever, and her evocation of both the familiar and the mysterious is nothing less than masterly. Winter Rose may well be praised by the more pretentious aficionados of literary fantasy so extravagantly that mere lovers of well-told tales will be turned off. They mustn't make that mistake and miss an excellent book. Roland Green From Kirkus Reviews Characteristically fresh, dainty fantasy from the author of The Book of Atrix Wolfe (1995), etc. Far-seeing, fey, independent Rois Melior spends much of the summer barefoot, roaming the woods about ruined Lynn Hall--until the estate's owner, Corbet, returns to claim his birthright. But supposedly the place is cursed, Corbet's father having murdered his grandfather there. Soon Rois glimpses an otherworld of perpetual summer, where Corbet seems to have spent most of his life--but Corbet's gaze falls upon Laurel, Rois's beautiful elder sister. Vastly curious about Corbet, his family, and the otherworld, Rois lingers at the Hall as winter deepens. Eventually she's drawn into the otherworld, where she meets Corbet, his father, and the world's incomprehensible ruling goddess; later she wakes in the Hall, half-frozen, beside the youthful corpse of Corbet's father, knowing that the goddess has forbidden Corbet to return. Laurel begins to pine away, much as Rois's mother did years before. But Rois realizes that the goddess has given her the means to win Corbet's freedom and save Laurel's life--if she has the courage and the will to hold fast to her need. Tingling and affecting work; a vast shame, then, that--like previous McKillip offerings--the plot's too frail and underdeveloped to do justice to the delightful, delicate filigree of her prose. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Patricia A. McKillip is a winner of the World Fantasy Award, and the author of many fantasy novels, including The Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy, Stepping from the Shadows , and The Cygnet and the Firebird . She lives in Oregon. Read more
Features & Highlights
- Two sisters, one delicate and sensible, one rough-hewn and sensual, fall in love with an aristocrat who returns to claim his family's abandoned estate, only to fall victim to the curse of his legendary grandfather.
