Patricia A. McKillip
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Subjects -> Science Fiction & Fantasy -> Authors, A-Z -> ( M ) -> McKillip, Patricia A.
Subjects -> Science Fiction & Fantasy -> Fantasy -> Historical
Subjects -> Science Fiction & Fantasy -> Fantasy -> General
Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 67
Average rating: 4.5 of 5
A vague, inarticulate tale 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 5 people found this review helpful.
Sometimes McKillip writes the way I would talk if I had marbles in my mouth. This is one of those times.
Excellent writing, world, and premise 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.
Winter Rose is typical of Patricia A. McKillip's recent work. It is extremely well written and evokes not only the images of her created worlds, but the textures and scents as well. While, on the surface, this feels like one of a number of similar stories wherein a young girl faces adversity and saves the day while simultaneously growing as a person, there is a deeper (and darker) undercurrent to the prose. McKillip draws upon numerous myths, but twists them together like the briars that she uses as theme. There are hints of Tam Lin, Rip Van Winkle (aka Thomas the Rhymer), and the Mabinogion among others.
However, there is a very human element as well. As the characters attempt to (and in many cases, fail to) understand what is going on, the story resonates between the present and the past, between reality and hallucination, and between dreams. Some characters grow, some characters do not. Some of the ones that do not are the very ones that should, and some of the ones that grow grow in saddening ways -- much like life, I suppose.
By the end, I was confused as to which events were real and which were dream. I was as uncertain as to which characters felt what as the characters themselves seemed to be. Most unsettling and yet in perfect correspondence with the myths of encountering the Fey. I am certain that this was intentional on McKillip's part.
It's an excellent read that I heartilly recommend...
Just don't read it in the winter.
Editorial Review:
Winter Rose begins as the seemingly simple story of Rois and Laurel Melior and their understandable fascination with young Corbet Lynn, returned to rebuild his abandoned ancestral home, Lynn Hall. Laurel is drawn to Corbet's beauty, Rois to the mystery of his past. But the past holds more than one mystery, and as Rois fights her way into the wood around Lynn Hall, seeking answers for herself, Laurel, and Corbet, she risks losing everything, for all of them, forever. Traces of Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market, of Tam Lin, and of a dozen other legends and tales color Rois's story. Patricia McKillip's consummate mastery of language means that every word counts in a complex, sweetly painful story of human love and timeless, indifferent power.
