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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Magical "Wood", February 14, 2006
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 And it has taken root in her own family: one relation is besotted with a wood nymph, while her teenage cousin has been replaced by a fay changeling.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.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
faerie rings, April 4, 2008
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.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Another enjoyable McKillip fantasy, April 21, 2006
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.
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