The setting of winter and the Cold and the Wild Hunt and the Fairy Queen and Nial Lynn (the cruel grandfather who set this all off) and even such mundane things as roses and thorns just give out vibes of ominosity (I love making up words that aren’t real, at least in my reviews). Ominous, that is probably the best word to describe the tone for this book. I enjoyed the daylights out of this read. I really shouldn’t have worried as it turned out. So I went into this with some trepidation, wondering how it would be. When I read this back in ’07, even though I praised it highly, my feelings were just how unpleasant everything was. One of the reasons I like to re-read books is to re-evaluate how I feel about them. The book ends with spring just around the corner and Corbet beginning to truly rebuild Lynn Manor. Since he is free, he can choose Rois and she can choose him. Laurel wakes from her infatuation with Corbet and Corbet realizes he was trying to be in love with her humanity to keep himself out of The Wood. Rois offers herself up to the Fairy Queen but her humanity ends up breaking the spell the Queen has over her, Corbet and Laurel.

With Corbet gone in deepest mid-winter, Laurel begins to fade away, much like their mother did years and years ago. He is under the spell of the fairy queen and when the fairy queen tries to take Corbet for her own, Tearle fights his ensorcellement and ultimately ends up dead in our world in the Lynn house and Corbet has disappeared. Rois figures out that Corbet is from the fairy world, ie, The Wood and in a dream-like trip there, comes across Corbet’s father, Tearle Lynn. Back in the real world, it becomes obvious that Corbet is in love with Rois’s older sister Laurel, who is engaged to Perrin, a local farmer. Rois feels an attraction to Corbet and in a dream is told to never let him go. But no one knows what the curse actually is. His father supposedly murdered his grandfather in the middle of winter long ago and the grandfather cursed him and all his descendants. She later finds out that a young man, Corbet Lynn, has returned to the village to repair and live in his ancestral home. She finds a hidden pool behind a curtain of wild roses and in the process of drinking from it one day, sees a stranger coalesce out of light and shadow. Rois, younger sister of Laurel, is a wild young woman who loves the woods. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions.

Winter rose mckillip