McKillip, Patricia A. - Solstice Wood

I really wanted to like this, but it just didn't end up working for me. It probably doesn't help that Winter Rose is one of my favorite McKillips.

The closest I came to liking this was the first description of the Fiber Guild, of power in thread and needle, of bindings and stitches. Dude! Why can't I do magic knitting?

Anyway, that is probably because I have a Pavlovian response to yarn, so that entire chapter, I bounced up and down with delight and glee and recognition.

Sylvia Lynn is the descendent of Rois Melior of Winter Rose. Her grandfather has just died, and her grandmather has called her back to Lynn Hall, a place that Sylvia has been trying to avoid for most of her adult life. Fairy gets in the way, there are a whole bunch of mix-ups and really not all that much plot.

Normally I would not mind the no-plot factor, as McKillip's prose and imagery and characters usually make up for it. This time, the more contemporary language didn't work for me, and the imagery really didn't. There were moments of loveliness, as expected, but I just can't wrap my head around the modern setting. Sometimes it works for me, but in this case, Winter Rose felt so removed from this world, and none of the characters in Solstice Wood seem to be living in the same world I live in. They didn't really feel like modern people, so every time they used cell phones or talked about CDs, it was incredibly jarring.

I also wasn't too impressed by the conflict of the book, especially since one of the things I loved about WR was the otherworldiness of the Fae, how different and frightening they were. So the conclusion of SW sort of ruined that for me. And I find that in general, I am getting sick of stories of the Fair Folk/Fae/Faery/Fairy/Titania/Oberon/The Queen of Darkness/and assorted other Celtic variants. They just don't hold the same fascination for me anymore, and as such, I'm already resisting some of the magic of the book.

Links:
- jinian's review (halfway down the page)
- gwyneira's review
- cofax7's review

I swear I've seen more people's write-ups, but I can't seem to find them...