Delacroix, Claire, Lynn Kurland, Sharon Shinn, and Sarah Monette - The Queen in Winter

[oyceter]

I borrowed this largely because I was desperate to read more set in the world of Melusine. As far as I can tell, the collection consists of four novellas that have fantasy and romance elements, all tied together somehow by the theme of winter, though some more than others. I'm also tossing in the caveat that I tend to really dislike romance short stories, as I feel they don't give me enough time to care about the characters, much less caring about the characters falling in love.

Lynn Kurland, "A Whisper of Spring"

I largely skimmed this one, as the story of a beautiful elf maiden falling in love with a handsome human magician wasn't really my cup of tea. I skimmed even more when it seemed like the two were largely in love because they were completely overtaken by the others' beauty. I have no sense of the hero or the heroine's personalities at all, and I briefly smiled at the hero's name ("Symon"), as that totally would have made my teenage self scribble it down in my notebook full of names (basically, anything that replaced an "i" with a "y" made the cut, if that tells you anything about the notebook and my teenage self). Mostly this seems to be a very boring take on The King of Elfland's Daughter and other stories in that vein, except without the mystery, the fantasy, and the sense of wonder.

Sharon Shinn, "When Winter Comes"

To my surprise, this ended up being my favorite story of the bunch. Sharon Shinn can be very hit or miss for me; her Samaria series has worldbuilding issues and gender issues that drive me absolutely batty, but I have fun with light-hearted romps like Summers at Castle Auburn. This thankfully does not have the gender issues, and the worldbuilding was solid enough for me.

Sosie and her sister Annie escape after her sister Annie's child Kinnon turns out to be a mystic (read: mutant kid). The world around them is not very mystic-friendly, particularly when the Daughters of Something-or-the-Other are hunting them down and killing them. Ok, I lied, I had a few gender qualms with that. But I ended up being all right with it, particularly because the real relationships in this book are mostly among the women, which I hadn't been expecting for a romance anthology. This story may have ended up working best for me because it wasn't about a romance; there is one in there, and I like it, but really, the story's more about Sosie and her sister.

I also just checked out Amazon reviews, which mention that this story is set in Shinn's Mystic and Rider universe, which I didn't realize. I don't think you need any of the background to enjoy the story.

Claire Delacroix, “The Kiss of the Snow Queen” (spoilers)

And now, we get to the oddest story in the compilation. I wasn't quite sure what to expect; I love the story of "The Snow Queen," and I've loved many retellings of that story. But there was this Celtic background, and then a whole bunch of stuff about Gerta being a mystical sorceress being who had to remain chaste or else lose her power and Cai being some Celtic sorcerer. And then Delacroix threw in the story of the Fall, complete with a spiritual entity who talked in modern slang. And THEN aforementioned spiritual entity introduced himself as Loki (among other names) and told the story of Skaldi from Norse mythology. I'm not even sure how accurate it is, but... whoa.

She eventually convinced me that Loki was the romantic interest, which made me think that the story had the brief potential to be cool in concept, at least, if not quite in execution, given that Gerta is a total wet rag. By the way, she did this by having Loki constantly fondling Gerta, naturally while commenting on her innate sexuality blah blah sensuality blah blah Gerta's burgeoning interest in men blah blah, normal romance setup. I may not like it, but I recognize it as a normal romance setup! Gerta then ends up asking Loki to deflower her, and naturally wakes up with more power than anticipated. And I was going to give Delacroix points for actually going all the way and saying her hero was Satan, not just that he looked like Satan or was called Satan by his friends or was as beautiful as sin or all the numerous other dark/fallen angel imagery replete in romance novels.

She and Loki defeat Skaldi/the Snow Queen/pick a name among mythologies, yay, Loki is your standard rogue hero (albeit Satan himself) who suddenly feels the desire to attempt redemption, thanks to Gerta's pure and innocent heart.

Then he goes off, and Cai (who has had about two pages in the story) and Gerta look longingly into each others' eyes and kiss and walk off together into the sunset.

Huh? With an added dose of: WTF?

Sarah Monette, “A Gift of Wings”

I suspect I would have liked this much more had I not actually read Melusine and The Virtu. It's not bad; it's just missing the sheer thrill and scope and insane angst and pain and hurt/comfort that those two books have, and I found myself missing that.

I liked that the hero and the heroine had a past as lovers together, that the heroine is older and more experienced than the hero, and that the current imbalance of power in the relationship puts the hero at the weaker end (looking at Amazon, it seems that I disagree with a lot of the reviewers, but then, I've never been much for most romance tropes anyway). The hero's been sorely hurt through war, and then instead of being healed, he found himself being shoveled into something that seems a lot like Felix's experience with St. Crellifer's in Melusine. He's withdrawn from the heroine, who can't figure out how to help him, and while all this is happening, they get snowed in at an inn, someone is murdered, and the two must solve it to prevent the heroine from being accused.

Again, this isn't a bad story. I just felt as though the tension between the hero and the heroine wasn't quite enough to make me believe that they were that worried or hurt. And possibly, this may be because I read it after reading Monette's novels, which have angst and trauma like whoa.

All in all, pretty uneven, which I expected, and I now want to read Shinn's Mystic and Rider series, which I didn't expect at all, but am pleasantly surprised at.

Links:
- kate_nepveu's review

Comments

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the reviews! The Delacroix sounds.....um. I have vague memories of reading something she wrote under a different name, involving mermaids, that had kind of WTF moments but nothing compared to this. This is really really, um.

[oyceter]

The Delacroix was... uh.... yeah.

WTF pretty much sums it up.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

I like a lot about the relationship in "A Gift of Wings," but I felt the story was structurally flawed because the mystery plot and the romance plot worked entirely independently instead of reinforcing each other; the character developments and the mystery went in parallel, like two entirely different stories sharing the same space.

[oyceter]

Ah yes, I think you've hit the nail on the head with the romance plot and the mystery plot not connecting to each other.

[chomiji]

OK, I'm evil as well as hasty.

But as I was zooming through the review of The Kiss of the Snow Queen, I looked at the lines

Then he goes off, and Cai (who has had about two pages in the story) and Gerta look longingly into each others' eyes and kiss and walk off together into the sunset.

and read them as

Then he and Cai (who has had about two pages in the story) look longingly into each others' eyes and kiss and walk off together into the sunset.

And did an abrupt 180 and came back to read it again ... and was rather disappointed. >sigh<

- Cho

[oyceter]

Bwah! See, I think your reading would have made the ending a hundred times more interesting!

Sharon Shinn

[(Anonymous)]

You'd probably like Mystic and Rider, the novel that the Shinn story you wrote about here is based on.

Re: Sharon Shinn

[oyceter]

Cool, I think I'll check them out when I find them at the library.