Customer Reviews

Solstice Wood

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Most sequels are only pale copies of the original story. But Patricia McKillip writes a sequel like nobody else.

Returning to the dreamlike Tam Lin storyline of "Winter Rose," McKillip spins up a new story in modern times. Sure, there are laptops, cell phones and green hair. But her lush writing and glimpses of a sinister, beautiful Otherworld are still firmly in place.

Generations of Lynns have lived at Lynn Manor, going back to Lynn Corbett and Rois Melior. Now Sylvia returns to it for her grandfather's funeral, only to find that he has willed the run-down manorhouse to her. She doesn't want it, preferring her urban bookstore to the eerie beauty of her old home.

But when she encounters visions of faerie and a sewing circle/coven, Sylvia must deal with the fact that there is magic. And it has taken root in her own family: one relation is besotted with a wood nymph, while her teenage cousin has been replaced by a fay changeling. To save them, Sylvia must confront her own mysterious past... and her fay blood.

Don't expect a copy or direct follow-up to "Winter Rose." The two stories are linked here and there, but not so that "Solstice Wood" relies on the past. Instead, it's a haunting story in its own right, which can almost make you believe that a magical, terrifying Otherworld exists right next to ours, and that that knitting-obsessed old lady might be a guardian witch.

This book is also written differently: McKillip switches perspective several times, from Sylvia to her grandmother, even to the changeling that replaces Tyler. And during the more contemporary scenes, she switches to less ornate language. But her lush writing hits its stride when the supernatural slips into the story, full of cobwebs, moonlight, water and woodlands.

Sylvia is a likable heroine, with a very weird family who is tangled up in the fairy world. She starts as an aggressively normal "working girl", but gradually changes as she explores her otherworldly ancestry. The other characters -- lonely Owen and grieving grandma Iris -- are delicately drawn, and Tyler is probably the most endearing of all, since he seems the most real. Yes, even when kidnapped by fairies.

Patricia McKillip spins another magical fantasy in "Solstice Wood," where the real world and the Otherworld collide. Lyrical and captivating.

Solstice Wood, by Patricia A. McKillip, is the sequel to Winter Rose, a love story about a human woman who fell in love with a "fay" man. Solstice Wood is set in the same American town, and the same house, but in modern times. Sylvia Lynn comes from a family that has lived in Lynn Hall for generations. Several years back, she left home rather abruptly, moving across the country, but now she must return for the funeral of her beloved grandfather. Sylvia is stunned to learn that Lynn Hall is now hers, according to her grandfather's will. She plans to stay only a few days, and on her last evening, attends the Fiber Guild, a women's club that has met at Lynn Hall for a century. It becomes more and more clear that something peculiar is going on, for the guild members seem unusually intent upon their designs and stitches.

I won't set down any spoilers about what happens to Syl and her family. This is an enticing story, part reality, part fantasy, with more than a touch of magic yet somehow credible. It incorporates many classic folkloric motifs and themes, but the one that most interested me is the needlework connection. In mythology and folklore, spinning, sewing, and threads play an important role. In story of the labyrinth and the Minotaur, for example, a thread is laid so the hero can find his way back out. The 3 Fates, spinning, weaving, and finally cutting the thread, represent the cycle of life. Fairy tale heroines prick their fingers on needles or spindles, or are forced into a life of endless spinning.

In Solstice Wood, the Fiber Guild's creations are designed to protect one world from another, using age old methods known to wise women everywhere. Today fiber artists recognize and appreciate the stress relieving properties of needlework. By reading such books as Solstice Wood, and by studying the magical properties of women's work and women's powers in folklore, I've come to appreciate the fiber arts in another way.

Gram calls bookstore owner Sylvia Lynn to come home as Grandpa Liam just died after wandering outside in the cold night of mountainous Upstate New York. Her lover Madison offers to accompany her, but Sylvia says no. Sylvia returns to Lynn Hall the same day that Gram beckoned her to come home with all intentions to flee as soon as she can.

However, as if she never left, the dilapidated house, the forest and the nearby supernatural creatures seduce Sylvia trying to entice her to stay. Gram introduces Sylvia to the sewing club members of the Fiber Guild, women who meet monthly to insure that the magical barricade that keeps Lynn Hall from the deadly Fay remains in tact. However, the magical barrier is showing signs of wear and tear, which places Sylvia, a hybrid offspring of two worlds, yanked from both sides who feel she is the key to victory over the hated abominations on the other side of the barrier.

Returning to the landscape of the classic WINTER ROSE, Patricia A. McKillip provides a deep character driven modern day fantasy that stars a harassed heroine who just wants to leave town as she has never understood why her Gram watches her like a hawk observes its prey. The action-packed story hooks genre fans from the moment that Sylvia knows Gram is calling her before picking up her phone from across the country and never slows down through several brilliant twists that will bring accolades to this dazzling author. A stand alone novel, readers will want to peruse this tale and its award winning precedent.

Harriet Klausner

I adore Winter Rose, just as I adore most of McKillip's work, and I was looking forward to this title.

It's--ok. McKillip's prose is, as ever, beautiful. Sylvia and the Changeling are both interesting characters, and there is some truly haunting material here.

However, the fact remains that McKillip is not really suited to writing with a Message (I can't think of any author that is, really), and this book has a Message, much as Something Rich and Strange had a Message.

Nor does Mckillip truly expect her readers to show much intelligence in understanding the Message--it sticks up painfully all through the novel and then is announced at the end by the Faerie Queen, just in case we'd missed it.

If you really love Mckillip, and you want to read everything, go ahead & read it--there are some wortwhile nuggets here and there. If you only like her, or are reading her for the first time, skip this book. Read Winter Rose instead.

This is McKillip's first contemporary fantasy, although it's related to the earlier Winter Rose, and tells the story of some of the descendants of Rois Melior and Corbet Lynn.

Sylvia Lynn reluctantly returns to her childhood home, Lynn Hall on the death of her grandfather, determined to avoid any entanglements with her family or the house, and to return as quickly as possible to her bookstore and the lover she refuses to marry. She's horrified when she discovers her grandfather has made her the sole heir to Lynn Hall. Gradually we learn that this reluctance is due not to a dislike of the house or to strained relations with her relatives, but to her own dark secret. Lynn Hall's purpose is to protect the world from incursions by the heartless hosts of Faerie-and Sylvia's unknown father was of Faerie. She's part of what Lynn Hall is supposed protect against, and the only way she can avoid being hated by her grandmother and the rest of the family and close friends, and possibly also being a danger to them, is to stay as far away as possible. But Great-Uncle Hurley is seeing fairies in the woods through his telescope, family friend Owen Avery has a fairy lover, cousin Tyler is stolen and replaced by a changeling, and Tyler's girl friend's father has discovered just enough that he thinks he can blackmail Gram and her coven into turning the Lynn Hall estate into an occult-themed theme park. Oh, and Gram's grown careless with her stitching the last ten years or so, and Lynn Hall's protections are breaking down. With disaster unfolding all around her, Sylvia has to confront her origins and her family if anything she cares about is going to survive.

Very enjoyable, and similar in feel to some of Nora Roberts' magic-themed romances.

I admit, I purchased the book because I have enjoyed most of MckIllip's other works. I was suprised to discover it was a contempory setting (the modern world, presuming of course magic and faery exist in the modern world).

I enjoyed Solstice Wood more than I expected. The speaker switches between characters and it is a change to see the same scene from different perspectives.

The first premise has become a classic one, woman returning home to mansion after fleeing to the big city. There are unusual twists in how the magic manifests and why the woman has fled away from her home.

The many characters are nicely developed, and make one interested in why they do what they do.

Early one morning, Sylvia Lynn received a call from her Grandmother telling her to come home. She'd avoided that summons for the past seven years, but when she discovers the reason is the death of her grandfather, Liam, she consents to return to the mountains and Lynn Hall.

Sylvia knows her grandmother wants her to stay--and her grandfather has left the place to her after her grandmother dies, but Sylvia cannot bring herself to do that. The mountain town is full of secrets--from Sylvia's own mysterious father to the sewing guild her grandmother belongs to.

Her grandfather's death helped unbind the gate to faery that her ancestral home had kept sealed for so long. Fae, who'd hung around the periphery are now more visible and more capable of causing trouble.

When Sylvia's cousin, Tyler, disappears and is exchanged for a twig simulcrum, she realizes she has to face the truth of her heritage in order to reclaim her young kinsman.

"Solstice Wood" is a beautifully written, but somewhat slow paced novel. The characters are engaging and seeing the tale from several points of view does enhance the telling. Patricia McKillip does a decent job of representing both male and female points of view. For me, the plot was somewhat oblique in spots and I think I suffered as a reader somewhat from not having read the first book in this series. Still, "Solstice Wood" can be read on its own and it is very well written.

McKillip is a true master of the fairy tale. Solstice Wood is set many, many years after her wonderful tale, Winer Rois (which I devoured in one setting!) It may be helpful to pick up that book before reading this, as sort of a background because McKillip doesn't delve much into what happened in Winter Rois, she just sort of uses it for a setup. Syl the main character is part fay, part human, whom has hid her heritage from her grandmother her whole life and must come to terms with this upon the death of her grandfather (whom embraced the fay and the wild wood in which they lived.) There is not a ton of action, but what action there is is well wrought. The characters are well described and the plot is solid. I know Amazon toted "The Stolen Child" as the "new" fairy tale but I believe Solstice Wood to be a much better selection.

McKillip's language is dreamy. It leaves a wisp of an impression, makes you long to find out what it implies, how the story ends. The dialogues are riddles that are like warm sunlight bathing you early in the morning. Solsitice wood is different from the other books that I have read of hers in that, it is set in our real world - something we can all identify with. Sylvia and Tyler and the very human and vulnerable Iris. The characters are all endearing and I read the story cover to cover in one day - just couldnt put it down. Her magic is stronger in that it is set in real mundane world and her characters are people we can identify with readily. A must read - though Riddle Master trilogy still remains my favourite.

"Solstice Wood" is a sequel (of sorts) to Patricia McKillip's earlier novel Winter Rose. The latter book is a dark and intricate fairytale based on the ballad of Tam Lin, in which a young girl attempts to free her love from the designs of a faerie-queen. Though still set in the mountains around Lynn Hall, "Solstice Wood" takes place hundreds of years later, in which contemporary men and women deal with the repercussions of Rois Melian's dealings with the fey-folk.

Sylvia Lynn has escaped her family and heritage to live in the city, but a phone call from her grandmother, informing her of her grandfather's death, calls her back home again. There she finds herself getting pulled ever-tighter into the tangled web of secrets, family problems, and ancient woods that surround her ancient home. As a direct descendant of Rois Melian, Sylvia is expected to embrace her past and her role as the heir of Lynn Hall, and she's introduced for the first time into the sewing circle known as Fiber Circle, a group of women who do much, *much* more than stitch patchwork quilts.

Like all of McKillip's novels, this is not a "fantasy" of the kind that involves magic swords, dark lords, or conflict between good and evil; yet it's also quite different from the fairy-tale nature of its predecessor. This is a story about a community who live on the verge of another world, sometimes intermingling with it, but always vaguely aware of its presence. The problems that arise are of a personal nature: a missing parent, a forbidden lover, a misunderstood duty. The confrontation is not a gung-ho battle, but something more subtle, more meaningful.

That's not to say that there isn't magic at work. Here you'll find changelings, undines, witches, and doorways to other words, all presented in McKillip's transcendent language. Each chapter flits between several characters, each one shedding new light on the proceedings and points of view - getting inside the changeling's head as it negotiates the strangeness of the human world is a particular treat! McKillip's rare use of first person-narrative means that her prose isn't quite as poetically dense as some of her other books, but there is beauty and humor here, and each character has a distinct voice that adds to the sense that the final resolution of the book is a joint-effort.

One doesn't have to have read "Winter Rose" in order to grasp what's going on; despite name-drops and the general theme, the two stories are completely different. In fact, "Solstice Wood" would be a good place to start a new reader onto her work as the prose is not so intimidating as some of her earlier novels, such as "Riddle Master". At the same time, it's a good chance for McKillip to amend some of the misconstructions of "Winter Rose": there, the realm of Faerie was a dark and dangerous place, now she has a chance to explore its more benevolent side is shown, particularly in the portrayal of the faerie queen. Previously she was cold and malevolent, now there's a chance to see her softer, summery side, and to realize that there's perhaps more to some of her more dubious actions than what appears.

"Solstice Wood" is a short book, in fact, vicarious readers may find themselves reading it in one sitting, but it's no less magical because of its length. Reading "Solstice Wood" is like enjoying a many-flavored ice-cream on a hot summer's day.