Winter Rose

As always, McKillip’s prose is magical without being dense or hard to read. Her books are like diving into a dream and leaving the self behind, coming out of it when the book is finished with ghosts and traces of the dream clinging to you for a while. Winter Rose is a small and contained story, with only one POV and taken place in a very limited set of environments. Because it’s so introspective and explores otherworldly... Read Full Review

"Winter Rose" is a fairy tale in more than one sense of the word. It has the feel of every decent fairy tale--curses, siblings, mysterious strangers, and puzzles that must be unlocked. It contains elements I've seen before, and this isn't a bad thing; this is hardly some rehashed, barely warmed-over, half-hearted retelling. It's quite original and interesting, despite the fairy-tale familiarity. It is also a fairy tale in... Read Full Review

How can two sisters be so different? Laurel is beautiful, proper, thoughtful, and utterly sensible. She calmly cares for her widowed father and plans her wedding to her childhood sweetheart. Rois is a wild freespirit who roams the woods by day and sometimes by night searching for something even she could not name. But they soon discover that they have one thing in common...his name is Corbet Lynn...Corbet returns to his father's... Read Full Review

Ms. McKillip has woven magic into this book. A tale of falling sunlight, drowning roses, shadowy green eyes, sweet perfumed water, cold winter days, half-seen images: of fey and the ordinary, of a hidden secret, a hidden sorrow in the Lynn legends. This is the story of Rois, the untamed, witch-like daughter of a farmer, and how, by loving the fey Corbet Lynn and ferreting out his secrets, following him through dreams... Read Full Review

This one is a wonderful expansion of the ancient tale about the young woman winning her lover back from the realm of faerie. McKillip takes a short faery tale and turns it into an engrossing novel with fully developed characters and plot. As always, her lavish treatment of detail makes for beautiful reading and I can't get enough of her prose.