Product Description

'They said later that he rode into the village on a horse the colour of buttermilk. But I saw him first - as a fall of light. And then as something shaping out of the light. So it seemed. There was a blur of gold: his hair. And then I blinked and saw his face more clearly.' From that moment, Rois is obsessed with Corbett Lynn. His pale green eyes fill her thoughts and her dreams are consumed by tales of his family's dark past. Of son's murdering fathers, of homes fallen to ruin, and of a curse that, as winter draws in, is crawling from the frozen forest to engulf them all.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #272198 in Books
• Published on: 2002-11-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Review
'Lush imagery and wry humour . McKillip's rich language conveys real strangeness and power' - Starlog 'McKillip's tale is decidedly atmospheric, complex, compelling, and filled with rich imagery' - Booklist 'Seamlessly classic in its passion and elegance' - Locus 'Her words and images remain masterfully evocative as she invokes great beauty using the simplest language' - Publisher's Weekly 'McKillip tells an intricate, beautiful tale with her usual cool elegance' - Chicago Sun-Times

About the Author
Patricia McKillip is the World Fantasy Award- winning author of a number of highly-acclaimed fantasy novels, including the Riddlemaster Trilogy. WINTER ROSE is her first cross- over novel for teenaged readers.

Customer Reviews

A wonderful winter tale from a lyrical teller
I enjoyed Patricia McKillip's 'Winter Rose' immensely. In fact I only received it this morning and finished it in one day - I couldn't put it down.

If you like poetry and descriptions of nature which are breath-takingly beautiful, you will love this book. The story follows a unique protagonist, Rois, in a tale that weaves its way through love, the passages between worlds and the harsh trial winter imposes upon an agrarian community. The atmosphere of the novel is completely surreal, seeming to flit from reality to dreamscape in a seamless and lyrical way, which kept me wanting more until the very end.

McKillip's characters are believable and fascinating and the pace of the story is smooth, never dragging. As an aspiring writer myself, I hold nothing but admiration for the beautiful twists and turns of the language and the lasting imagery the author conjures from the written page.

Highly recommended in every sense, especially if you are looking for unconventional fantasy.

An original tale, superbly told. One can only be enriched by the experience!

Call me nuts, but this is my favorite McKillip book...
For some reason, the rating for "Winter Rose" has turned up surprisingly low. I loved this book. It was absolutely breathtaking, and I was immediately hooked, for the first sentence to the last one. McKillip blends the Tam Lin story line with fantastic elements that are distant and beautiful. The characters' emotions are made very real (particularly Rois') and the ending was more than I had expected it to be...only Patricia could have handled it the way it was handled. This book is page after page of wonder. Read it.

A Haunting Tale of Unrequited Love and the Curse of the Past
This haunting tale, both literally and figuratively, marks another wonderful entry into Patricia McKillip's world of Faerie. In this tale the Otherworld wears a darker mask, casting a spell that lures the participants away from their own world and into a realm that despite its beauty hides a cold and indifferent heart. The key to this realm is a curse, a spectre of the past that threatens the characters to reenact an earlier tragedy. As much a story about ghosts as fantasy, unrequited love as magic, this tale is woven with all the marvelous skill and wonder found in earlier McKillip works, and with an emotional intensity that perhaps sets it apart, and with a tone and mystery reminiscent of works such as "Wuthering Heights" or "The Turn of the Screw, though placed in a faerie tale setting.

McKillip's style of writing also sets her apart from most other fantasists, a prose at once both direct and elegant, with an ability to recast the natural and personal world into a realm vibrating with an urgency of beauty unseen, spirits barely glimpsed, recalling the sense of wonder we once had looking at the world as a child. Something is always stirring just beyond our sight, and in McKillip's stories it is not only the magical worlds of imagination, but hidden insights as well into human nature and the world we create around us in our minds. While these stories can be read simply for their narrative power and imagination, there are elements throughout the text that if glimpsed will provoke thought and reconsideration of what we accept as truth. These themes and metaphoric insights are guised in a manner similar to the author's etheric spirits, a face peering out of the leaves, a figure briefly seen, then gone, though barely glimpsed, haunting and not forgotten. If you are not provoked into thought, then you need a closer reading.

While I enjoyed this work, and will read it again, I did not find it as tightly focused or resolved as some of her other work, such as "The Book of Atrix Wolfe." At times the author stretched for similes or understandings that for me remained only partly conveyed. Perhaps I myself need to take a closer look. It was for this reason I only awarded it four stars. However, this qualification is meant only to refer to McKillip's other work--compared to other authors this book qualifies as a solid five stars. Those of you who haven't read the author's books don't know what you are missing.