Customer Reviews

The Queen in Winter

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It seems that the people who read this anthology fall into either of two groups: romance readers who love Kurland's story and mostly dislike the other ones and fantasy readers who pick the book up for Shinn's story and don't know what to make of the rest.

The plots are neatly summed up in the book description, so I'll just give you my impressions.

"A Whisper of Spring": Sometimes the impossible is closer than you think.
I'm more of a fantasy reader, so Kurland's story was very nice, life-affirming, cozy, predictable and perfectly forgettable to me. No background building whatsoever. Maybe if it were a full-length book... Well, it's obviously a part of her Nine Kingdoms series, with another story published in the anthology "To Weave a Web of Magic" and a full-length novel "Star of the Morning" coming out in December 2006, so there's still hope. Three stars.

"When Winter Comes": Fight for the ones you love and you'll get rewarded.
I love Sharon Shinn, so I liked her story very well, though it started as slow as her novels tend to, which may be annoying to unaccustomed readers. The story is a spin-off of her novel "Dark Moon Defender", the third volume of her Twelve Houses series. Even though it can easily be read without knowing the series, I suspect that in order to get a better feeling of the political/social background it would be best to have read at least "Mystic and Rider" first. Four stars.

"The Kiss of the Snow Queen": I've no idea what this story was about.
Deveraux' story was the one in the lot I simply disliked and was bored by. It's not that it was badly written. I suppose that there may even be some readers who'll love it. However, the mix of Christian faith and Norse myths combined with the fairy tale of the Snow Queen and stuffed with both modern slang and medieval archaisms was... chancy, to put it mildly. I'm not usually bothered by such things (obviously, since I love Shinn's books), but some readers who are serious about their religion may even find it offensive. And if there was any romance at all, it was not between the hero and the heroine. Two and a half stars.

"A Gift of Wings": Love heals.
I've never read anything by Monette, so I was pleasantly surprised. The best story in the anthology, in my opinion. It was maybe too obviously a 'healing' romance, developed against a background of a 'whodunnit'. Intricate world building, very interesting characters. This story is a bit darker than the other ones. What some readers may not like about it is that the heroine is obviously the stronger partner and the hero does a lot of crying, sometimes coming across as seventeen rather than thirty, but, hey, he's entitled ;-) I think I'm going to give her novels a try. Four and a half stars.

In my opinion, this anthology is such a mixed bag that each person will find a different story to his or her liking, but never all of them.

"A Whisper of Spring" by Lynn Kurland. Lothar kidnaps elfin Princess Iolaire. Human Symon attempts to rescue the female who haunts his dreams.

"When Winter Comes" by Sharon Shinn. Sosie believes she needs to keep her numinous nephew Kinnon and his mother, her sister Annie, safe as many want to use the youngster for selfish gain. However, she soon needs help; Darryn provides that assistance though Sosie wonders about his motive.

"The Kiss of the Snow Queen" by Claire Delacroix. Gerta the seer sets off on a quest to rescue Cai the sorcerer from the evil Cath Pulag. She receives mysterious aid from a spirit.

"A Gift of Wings" by Sarah Monette. Agido the mercenary protects her former lover Maur, but soon needs his help when someone is killed at an inn as she is the prime suspect.

These four romantic fantasies are fine tales with delightful lead protagonists who depend on one another to survive their respective quests. However, none of the fantasy realms are fully developed in spite of some characters having paranormal powers and using them. Still this is a fun time for fans who appreciate romances of a different sort.

Harriet Klausner

*** This collection is a very mixed bag. Though each tale is about a woman of unusual strength, in some form, each is quite different. In one, a Xena like woman travelling with a crippled magician finds that her greatest battle lies in healing him, so they can find love. In another an elf and human cross the barriers between their lives to discover one another and defy the odds to keep their love. In yet another, two sisters make a dangerous trek to try and save the weaker girl's baby, for it is a powerfully gifted child, even at his young age. In the process, the stronger sister finds a reward of love. The outstanding story in the collection is a re-telling of the Ice Queen. In it, the heroine is given a vision of the man she loves fighting a monster and being infected with shards of magical glass that will kill his soul. Only by joining forces with a fallen angel named Loki can she save him and her people. The winning aspect of this story is Loki's running commentary that is laugh out loud fun. Of all the stories, this one feels the most complete. The others tend to feel like a piece of a larger story we are jumping into the midst of. ***

Amanda Killgore

I bought this anthology for the Sharon Shinn story and adored that one. She picked up a thread I really wanted to see resolved and wove it in quite satisfactorily. Always ready for new authors in this genre, I read the rest of the book. The other three stories, by Sarah Monette, Claire Delacroix and Lynn Kurland, were good. Perfectly nice to wile away an hour or two but not so outstanding you want to go out and buy a book by them (although Ms. Kurland almost has me just because I also enjoyed her short story in "To Weave a Web of Magic"). Thus, my four stars. Good, great for Ms. Shinn's tale, just solid fairytale/romance/magic/fantasy. Enjoy.

I bought this book for the Sharon Shinn story, as I am a big fan of her Mystic and Rider series, and this story ties up a few loose ends. I also enjoyed the other stories, but the real treasure was Sarah Monette's short story, A Gift of Wings. It's a beautiful story, and extraordinarily well-written, so I give this book 5 stars for not only living up to my expectations as far as Sharon Shinn's story, but also introducing me to an exceptional new author for me.

I got this book for the first story, "A Whisper of Spring" by Lynn Kurland. I love her writing, while the other authors here just aren't my style. I love the way Lynn's stories are all clean... the romance is real love rather than sexual chemistry. This story didn't disappoint me. The emotion and tension is there, even though not even a kiss can be found in its pages. It is a BEAUTIFUL story of two people who discover that the chance that they never thought possible, has been given to them... to be together.

Iolaire, an elfin princess, has been kidnapped by the evil Lothar of Wychwold. Her brother seeks out Symon, the mage king of Neroche, to help rescue her. The rescue is swiftly accomplished... but Iolaire cannot return to her home... and Symon finally dares to believe that maybe he can have her as his own.

For those that are looking at this book for Lynn Kurland's Nine Kingdoms books and are wondering how it falls into the timeline, here's a current list (as of Jan '10):

Two Prelude short stories, found in anthologies with other authors:
The Queen in Winter (this book)
To Weave a Web of Magic (The Tale of Two Swords where Mehar and Gilraehen fall in love)

Miach and Morgan's story is told in:
1- Star of the Morning (The Nine Kingdoms, Book 1)
2- The Mage's Daughter (The Nine Kingdoms, Book 2)
3- Princess of the Sword (The Nine Kingdoms, Book 3)

Ruith and Sarah's story (which OVERLAPS Miach and Morgan's story in the timeline) is told in:
4- A Tapestry of Spells (The Nine Kingdoms, Book 4)
5- Spellweaver (The Nine Kingdoms, Book 5)
6- Untitled, due to be published in January 2012, as per Lynn Kurland's website

And she's said there are more Nine Kingdoms trilogies planned for successive Januaries.

I came to this collection knowing only the work of Sharon Shinn but finished this series of short stories a fan of each writer. This is a book for grown ups, people who have loved and lost and have persevered to hope for love again. For me this collection is a keeper, there are nuances and self realization and character growth in each story that I find very personally very appealing. Yes, these are fairy tales with romance weaved in, but they are also stories of women going on the mythic hero's journey.

While I enjoyed each of the stories, my very favorite is "A Gift of Wings" by Sarah Monette, a title which sounds a bit too soppy for a story which is really a very artful "coming back to love thought lost + enticing who done it" set up in a northern European-esque fantasy world. It was a story that left me hoping for more, that perhaps our tough, patient, wise warrior heroine Agido and our younger, brilliant, high-born sorcerer and war scarred hero Maur had other stories in other places. Alas, this seems it is not the case - but the sophistication of the level of writing is such that I will seek out other Monette books.

Ok Three stars cause I didn't like Two of the stories. I love Kurland and Shinn and really enjoyed both of these stories. When winter comes was fun to read about a character that was in the book "The Mystic and the Ryder.A book I love. 'A Whisper of Spring' is a little background for the Nine Kingdom books by Kurland. I did try to read Kiss of the Snow Queen but it was crude and not well written so I didn't finish. A gift of Wings was ok but I was missing major back story and it wasn't clean and all the gender roles were mixed up, weird.

This is marketed as fantasy romance, but it's mostly just fantasy.

**** "A Whisper of Spring" by Lynn Kurland.

Literally a fairy tale. It was love at first sight for a mage king and a fairy princess, but fairies don't wed mages. They get their chance when his evil brother captures and imprisons her and her brother asks him to rescue her.

It was a nice story, but it felt as if a lot of it had been left out. We learn, for example, that he's one of the most powerful mages, but don't see much evidence of it. We also learn that her mother had betrayed her to the evil brother, but not why or how. It would make sense if it were part of a series, but I couldn't find any evidence of that.


**** "When Winter Comes" by Sharon Shinn.

In a land where magic is distrusted, a young woman tries to protect her sister and infant nephew. The baby's father was a mystic, and the baby himself has magic powers that make it hard for them to stay incognito. They're aided by a man of the nobility and a pair of female mystics.

It was interesting, but felt more like the introduction to something than a complete story in itself. The romance is virtually nonexistent, which isn't a bad thing, except that it's marketed as fantasy romance.


**** "The Kiss of the Snow Queen" by Claire Delacroix.

Re-telling of the snow queen fairy tale, but instead of the brother being affected by the snow queen, it's the handsome prince. The heroine's a seer in training, who's been told that she must remain chaste to preserve her power. She's barricaded herself in her room to avoid a forced marriage to a cruel prince, calls for help in her magic mirror, and gets more than she bargained for. In the end, she has to choose between her power and the life of the man who came to her aid.

All the sensuality in this one is related to an angel who calls himself Loki, who feeds on sexual energy. The ending was a surprising let-down.


**** "A Gift of Wings" by Sarah Monette.

Again, light on the romance, which, again, is only a problem because it's marketed as romance, which has nothing to do with the story and everything to do with the publisher. Also again, I felt as if I'd come into the middle of a series, though according to her website, "'A Gift of Wings' takes place in the same world as Mélusine and The Virtu, though it is a standalone story--no overlap with the novels."

The hero and heroine are on their way to seek help for him--he was wounded physically and his magic was damaged or destroyed somehow in a war. At an inn, they come across an arrogant wizard who'd told him that his injuries were all in his head, then later that night, they discover the man dead. Being the obvious suspects, the hero and heroine have to find whodunit.

Fans of gender reversal will like this one--the heroine is larger and stronger than the hero, and he's very dependent on her. Call me sexist, but I don't find that romantically appealing at all. As a fantasy, though, it's fine. It does turn out that she'd fallen in love with him before his injuries, so that redeems the love story for me--otherwise, I'd be thinking she was more in love with the image of herself as a longsuffering caretaker to an invalid.

This collection features 4 novellas from some of the leading romantic fantasy writers. All 4 stories are enjoyable but the stand out for me is Sharon Shinn's contribution. This story fits into the world of her Twelve Houses series and follows a character fans of this series know, Darryn Rappengrass. This is a delicious meeting of a humorous loyal man and Sosie, the strong girl who helped save her sister in Mystic & Fire. This story is worth the price of the book for me. I couldn't help but smile reading it. The Ice Queen is also a nice read but the rest just can't hold a candle to Shinn in my opinion.