“Fiddle-de-dee’s not English.”

Winter Rose by Patricia A McKillip
ATOM (2002)
272 pages

I think Patricia A McKillip is one of those authors one either loves or has a very difficult time trying to get into. It’s her writing — her deliberate, beautiful prose and how it makes it really hard, sometimes, to see what’s actually happening because you’re blinded by the language. I think she does it on purpose . . . there’s probably some sort of hidden agenda: let’s sneakily cover up the plot with beautiful language!

Winter Rose is the story of Rois, who lives with her sister and their father on a farm. Rois is as familiar with the woods as she is of her own home, running around barefoot collecting flowers and herbs in the rain or sun, bringing them back for her practical, sensible sister Laurel. One day, by a spring covered by rose briars, she first sees Corbet Lynn. Corbet, whom everyone else says rode into the village, was returning to rebuild his ancestral home at Lynn Hall. But what Rois saw is this:

That’s how I saw him at first: as a fall of light, and then something shaping out of the light. So it seemed. I did not move; I let the water stream silently down my wrist. There was a blur of gold: his hair. And then I blinked, and saw his face more clearly.

I must have made some noise then. Perhaps I shifted among the wild fern. Perhaps I sighed. He looked toward me, but there was too much light; I must have been a blur of shadow in his eyes.

Then he walked out of the light.

Pretty, isn’t it.

Laurel is caught by the stranger’s beauty as Rois is caught by the mysteries of his past. Rois gets entangled even further as she tries to solve Corbet’s mystery. The whole thing is beautiful and sombre and dark and otherworldly, in this curious, quiet countryside where a murder happens and the only reactions the people give are of curiosity, and all the villagers seem to do is discuss the past of Lynn Hall. And then there’s the complex relationships between the characters. Even until the end everything is still complicated, and I ached for Rois and Corbet, and Laurel and her fiancé, and Rois’s father.

I picked up this book because it was recommended after I finished Diana Wynne Jones’s Fire and Hemlock, which is based on the ballad of Tam Lin, just like Winter Rose. (One of these days I really should find out what Tam Lin is really about.) This also book made me go about hunting for other books by McKillip, though I haven’t been really successful. Aside from The Riddle-Master’s Game, the only other book I’ve found is The Forgotten Beasts of Eld. Hopefully the library will pay attention to my suggestion forms and I’ll get to read some of her other books too!

Also! Apparently there is a sequel of sorts called Solstice Wood. Hmm.

The Riddle-Master’s Game by Patricia A McKillip
Gollancz (2001)
640 pages

You know what the best thing about this book is? It’s about people. It’s about their joys and their griefs, their struggles and the losses and victories. I loved the characters. Well, some of the minor ones came off as a bit two-dimensional, but the protagonists were real and likeable, and you can’t help but root for them up until the end.

This single volume actually holds the whole trilogy of the Riddle-Master. A trilogy in 640 pages! Frankly, I was relieved. After reading Robert Jordan and George RR Martin, I was ready to give up reading fantasy series due to sheer length. The first book, The Riddle-Master of Hed, starts off with Prince Morgon of Hed being confronted by his siblings about the crown he has hidden under his bed. Strange thing to do with a crown, don’t you think. (His frustrated sister pours sour milk on Morgon and his brother to stop their fighting. That startled me into a fit of giggles.) That’s only the start of Morgon’s problems — now he has to go to An to meet his bride-to-be: Raederle, the second most beautiful woman in An, but he gets sidetracked along the way by all sorts of things.

After the cliffhanger ending of the first book — and man, I am glad I had everything in one volume, because otherwise I’d be tearing my hair out — the second book, Heir of Sea and Fire, focusses on Raederle as she tries to discover what has happened to Morgan. The last book, Harpist in the Wind, has Morgan and Raederle planning what to do next as they figure out who are their real friends and allies.

I liked the book. The prose is spare but evocative, and McKillip uses the language so deliberately and beautifully. The pacing moved at a sedate pace without making the story boring, and the system of magic intrigued me. And it’s a whole trilogy in 600+ pages.

The cover is rather ugly, though. I had stared and stared and stared at it, wondering what the illustration was portraying, and only somewhere near the end of the second book that I realised that it was Morgon (probably walking in the snow against the wind — I still am not too sure about that) holding his harp. If there’s a reissue, I certainly hope it gets a better cover!

.

This is the last book read in 2007. I am done with 2007. Finally. Talk about slow. /o/ This book is also the last book read for the Speculative Fiction Challenge, hosted by Renay.