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86th out of 926 books
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5,287 voters
Winter Rose (Winter Rose #1)
Sorrow and trouble and bitterness will bound you and yours and the children of yours...
Some said the dying words of Nial Lynn, murdered by his own son, were a wicked curse. To others, it was a winter's tale spun by firelight on cold, dark nights. But when Corbet Lynn came to rebuild his family estate, memories of his grandfather's curse were rekindled by young and old - an...more
Some said the dying words of Nial Lynn, murdered by his own son, were a wicked curse. To others, it was a winter's tale spun by firelight on cold, dark nights. But when Corbet Lynn came to rebuild his family estate, memories of his grandfather's curse were rekindled by young and old - an...more
Mass Market Paperback, 262 pages
Published
May 1st 1997
by Ace
(first published July 1st 1996)
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Rois and Laurel are two very different sisters. The story follows Rois, the wild girl who feels at home outdoors. Both girls become fascinated with a man named Corbet. Rois becomes tangled in enchantments and mystery as she seeks to rescue the man she and her sister both love.
Winter Rose is a Tam Lin retelling, and I think a particularly good one; also, it's a favorite of mine among McKillip's books. The first person narrator (a device I can't remember McKillip using in any of her other books I've read) gives the book a little more emotional immediacy than usual, and the writing is just as gorgeous and rich as always: the faeries and the faery world are particularly outstanding, with just the otherworldliness I was missing from Janet McNaughton's An Earthly Knight.
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When Corbet Lynn comes to reclaim the dilapidated Lynn Hall, the wild Rois--given to foraging barefoot in the woods--becomes obsessed with the secrets and curses of his past. Winter Rose is a Tam Lin retelling at its best: it harvests some aspects (from Tam Lin and other tales) and discards others while maintaining the emotional and symbolic essence of the source material; it then weaves an entire tale around that skeleton, creating a vivid setting and cast without losing the story's magic. Inde...more
Admittedly I started buying McKillip's books because of their covers, and was lucky enough to find an author that I liked. What I admire about the covers, aside from being lovely, is that they're done by an artist who has obviously read the books. Don't you hate it when you judge a book by it's cover, get it, and even if you LIKE the book come to realize that said cover was done by someone who never bothered to read more then a summary of the contents they're decorating?
I think the worst offende...more
I think the worst offende...more
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REREAD #1: 8/10 (3 September 2006 - 5 September 2006)
This was a reread for me. I have McKillip's latest, Solstice Wood and since I knew that was about descendants of the characters in Winter Rose it seemed a good idea to reread that one first.
This is classic McKillip. The writing is dense, lyrical and beautiful. The tale is told in a tangle of metaphor and illusion that drags the reader in. Winter Rose is build from the basis of a retelling of Tam Lin, but McKillip takes the tale new places and...more
This was a reread for me. I have McKillip's latest, Solstice Wood and since I knew that was about descendants of the characters in Winter Rose it seemed a good idea to reread that one first.
This is classic McKillip. The writing is dense, lyrical and beautiful. The tale is told in a tangle of metaphor and illusion that drags the reader in. Winter Rose is build from the basis of a retelling of Tam Lin, but McKillip takes the tale new places and...more
This was the first of McKillip's books that I read. I was hooked by the second sentence. She is one of the most eloquent writers I've ever read; every word she puts down makes her books richer and more beautiful, no matter what it describes. I often find, actually, that I end up losing myself in the writing and forget what I'm reading about in the sheer lyricism of it. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad, but it's certainly no chore to go back and reread what I failed to notice.
If it w...more
If it w...more
I started reading this book a number of years ago and never finished. After having read it completely, I understand why I put it down the first time. While Winter Rose is a wonderful novel with great storytelling, you have to be ready to be pulled into the Winter Rose experience when you pick it up. The descriptions are beautiful, but they take over. Sometimes I felt like I was trapped in a haze of impressions rather than a novel, which is the perfect way to experience this book--but not if you'...more
I've been thinking quite a bit about this book lately. I loved it when I first read it as a fourteen-year-old. (This was not long after I read Villette by Charlotte Bronte and Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, two amazing novels that opened my eyes to the manifold benefits of giving a book a strong female first-person narrator.)
McKillip is not for everybody: her writing is highly stylized, intensely florid, and stubbornly pre-Raphaelite in its aesthetics. She uses phrases like "He rode a horse the c...more
McKillip is not for everybody: her writing is highly stylized, intensely florid, and stubbornly pre-Raphaelite in its aesthetics. She uses phrases like "He rode a horse the c...more
I wish no-one had told me this book was supposed to be inspired by a ballad I'm highly familiar with. The prose is beautiful, evocative and pacy, the characters vivid and complex...which makes the swinging from a 17th-century England (England!)-like setting to a 19th-century American-type one distinctly upsetting.
I don't mind retellings of Old World ballads in New World settings, far from it - I just wish McKillip would pick an ecology/history and stick with it. You can't have a tale rooted in...more
I don't mind retellings of Old World ballads in New World settings, far from it - I just wish McKillip would pick an ecology/history and stick with it. You can't have a tale rooted in...more
I sat down and read this grippingly passionate tale in the space of 4 hours. I was hooked from the first page and I realised around halfway through that my mouth was dry, I had a frown of concentration furrowing my brows and I had a crook in my neck from not moving for a long time... The sense of distance and mysteriousness in the writing style really added to the story (which was almost a mystery itself) as I found out more and more about what was going on as I read. I loved the way I had to ke...more
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This is a beautifully written, near-hallucinatory little novel, almost breathless in its telling of the story of a young man, Corbet Lynn, who returns to the ruins of his ancestral home, Lynn Hall, and starts to rebuild. There's a village rumor of a family curse, a dying man's words no one can quite remember the same way, as if the words and the memories shift with each retelling. One winter Corbet's grandfather was murdered by his son, Tearle—Corbet's father—who then disappeared without a trace...more
Full review posted here.
As far as retellings of Tam Lin go, this one does an excellent job maintaining the story and characters. The meeting at the well with roses, the heroine’s heedless love of running through the woods in unladylike manner, the hero’s cold manipulative indifference, the curse, the unfeeling Faerie Queen, the heroine holding the hero through transformations to break the curse, it is all here. This story adds the twist of the sister equally fascinated by the hero. Corbet wants...more
As far as retellings of Tam Lin go, this one does an excellent job maintaining the story and characters. The meeting at the well with roses, the heroine’s heedless love of running through the woods in unladylike manner, the hero’s cold manipulative indifference, the curse, the unfeeling Faerie Queen, the heroine holding the hero through transformations to break the curse, it is all here. This story adds the twist of the sister equally fascinated by the hero. Corbet wants...more
Rois sees a man walk out to the woods. . . and being a rather wild thing herself, she gathers flowers and herbs and returns to learn of Corbet Lynn, who returned home to claim his grandfather's lands, which have fallen to wrack and ruin since the day so many years ago when his father killed his grandfather and ran off, cursed by that grandfather. Not that any two people can tell the same story of what the curse was, or any one person tell who was there to see that it was murder, or hear the curs...more
Winter Rose by Patricia McKillip
5 Stars + Favorite
272 Pages
When Corbett Lynn returns to the home of his father and grandfather before him, intent on rebuilding Lynn Hall, he stirs up memories long since locked away. It is said that on the night his grandfather mysteriously died, some say murdered, and his father disappeared, Nial Lynn uttered a powerful curse to chase his descendents through time. Yet no one was there to see the old man die, so how could they know of this curse, or more correctl...more
5 Stars + Favorite
272 Pages
When Corbett Lynn returns to the home of his father and grandfather before him, intent on rebuilding Lynn Hall, he stirs up memories long since locked away. It is said that on the night his grandfather mysteriously died, some say murdered, and his father disappeared, Nial Lynn uttered a powerful curse to chase his descendents through time. Yet no one was there to see the old man die, so how could they know of this curse, or more correctl...more
Winter Rose is a tale of two sisters. When Corbet Lynn returns to claim his ancestral home, rumors of a curse on his family start circulating. Conventional Laurel falls madly in love with Corbet, forsaking her fiancee, while "wild girl" Rois becomes obsessed with finding the truth about the curse. Trouble is, everyone seems to have heard something different - and no one was actually there when it supposedly happened.
The book is a romance where not a lot does happen, and if it hadn't been writte...more
The book is a romance where not a lot does happen, and if it hadn't been writte...more
This book has been my favourite for nearly two decades. I think I'm on my third copy of the actual book!
If not the most perfectly written book I've ever read, it more than makes up for any very slight rough edges with it's exquisite lyricism. As other reviewers have written, it's not for everyone. The language is densely poetic, and the book is best enjoyed if one has the luxury of being able to be immersed in its world.
While Rois is a teenager, and I can see why some reviewers have mentioned th...more
If not the most perfectly written book I've ever read, it more than makes up for any very slight rough edges with it's exquisite lyricism. As other reviewers have written, it's not for everyone. The language is densely poetic, and the book is best enjoyed if one has the luxury of being able to be immersed in its world.
While Rois is a teenager, and I can see why some reviewers have mentioned th...more
Oct 30, 2012
Valerie
added it
Why did I think I had read this book? I'm nearly half the way through, and I don't recognize any of it.
Mckillip's usual rich language leads the reader on, but often it's misleading as well. The story keeps looping back to a well (?pool? spring? Its contours are masked by rosebriars).
The narrator is hypersensitive. She senses smells, sounds, currents, patterns, winds...all things others sense dimly if at all. She also seems to have shamanic trances: but only in regards to one story, apparently.
Th...more
Mckillip's usual rich language leads the reader on, but often it's misleading as well. The story keeps looping back to a well (?pool? spring? Its contours are masked by rosebriars).
The narrator is hypersensitive. She senses smells, sounds, currents, patterns, winds...all things others sense dimly if at all. She also seems to have shamanic trances: but only in regards to one story, apparently.
Th...more
Dreamy and atmospheric. She tackled some very difficult things in this book; the character experienced confusion of setting and displacing dreams frequently, but I never felt muddled or confused.
I loved how everyone in the village was friendly and unique. There was never any fear by the MC that she would be abused or harassed by any of the men, even after a band of them found her alone, wandering half-dead in the snow. This book wasn't about the evils of people but the legacy of curses and an ex...more
I loved how everyone in the village was friendly and unique. There was never any fear by the MC that she would be abused or harassed by any of the men, even after a band of them found her alone, wandering half-dead in the snow. This book wasn't about the evils of people but the legacy of curses and an ex...more
I wouldn't suggest this for younger readers of YA fantasy, but it isn't because there are sexual scenes or swearing or intense violence. It's asimply a matter of how much could a younger child grasp as they read this? Some adults would not enjoy a book that does not explain itself, I suspect. I enjoyed the mysterious moods and the half glimpsed answers to the dancing coy questions, but I know I wouldn't have in other types of literature. In here, however, the thing works as a mythos, half recogn...more
Sep 15, 2009
Leah
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
anyone who likes Robin McKinley
Shelves:
library-book,
fiction
I've read some Patricia A. McKillip before, but I can't remember exactly what or when. This book reminded me so strongly of my favorite parts of Robin McKinley's work that I'm going to have to read more McKillip.
The book is set in the same sort of fairy-tale, peasant era that so many fantasy worlds employ, and goes from there to a world beyond and back, as many fantasy novels do. However, McKillip paints this world with images too beautiful to consign to the ordinary. There is a section of cloud...more
The book is set in the same sort of fairy-tale, peasant era that so many fantasy worlds employ, and goes from there to a world beyond and back, as many fantasy novels do. However, McKillip paints this world with images too beautiful to consign to the ordinary. There is a section of cloud...more
Although I spent my entire childhood wearing out VHS tapes of "The Last Unicorn" and "Dark Crystal," I normally don't venture deeper into the fantasy genre than Tolkien and Le Guin. Once imaginary kingdoms cease to resemble Europe, and the pronunciation of every single character's name is a mystery to me, my eyes start to glaze, and if the story then detours into the Land of Faerie, there's almost no hope of my finishing the book.
But I randomly picked up Winter Rose at a bookstore and was encha...more
But I randomly picked up Winter Rose at a bookstore and was encha...more
Don't read much fantasy, but my girlfriend recommended this. A lovely slightly gothic tale, a love story, it moves between two worlds, a kind of deathly underworld and the light of day, between a tragic hero and a nature woman who doesn't know her own boundaries.
"Winter Rose" was first up in my resolve to read more fantasy. It reminded me of the fantasy I used to get lost in back in my fantasy heyday (when I read, and was underwhelmed by another McKillip, "The Forgotten Beasts of Eld.")
The middle third was a little rough. I got bogged down in a web of barely coherent fantastical maneuvers. How many trips into a dangerous winter to glimpse/dream a face or conversation through an indefinable magical portal can one reader withstand? Additionally, the symbo...more
The middle third was a little rough. I got bogged down in a web of barely coherent fantastical maneuvers. How many trips into a dangerous winter to glimpse/dream a face or conversation through an indefinable magical portal can one reader withstand? Additionally, the symbo...more
I think this was the first of Patricia McKillip's books that I read. In fact, I'd never heard of her, and only picked it up because it was shelved next to Robin McKinley's works in the used bookstore. I liked it then, but was a little perplexed by it. All I could really remember after was how beautifully rich her descriptions were, how lush her prose.
And now that I've read it again several years later, I'm still struck by the beauty and the skill with which she shapes her books. Winter Rose isn...more
And now that I've read it again several years later, I'm still struck by the beauty and the skill with which she shapes her books. Winter Rose isn...more
This was the first book by Patricia McKillip I've ever read, and the first fantasy novel I've read in quite a long time. I was impressed by how evocative McKillip's writing was; there was a sense of "place" that was both dream-like and tangible. I identified with her protagonists' sense of never quite belonging as well as her inexplicable yearning for something she couldn't quite name. The intricacy of the family relationships, particularly between Rose and her sister, were also well done. Someh...more
I am a big fan of Patricia McKillip. I've been reading her books for years, starting with The Changeling Sea. I love her style, her prose, but she also has a great way of telling a story and getting you to view the world from a completely different angle.
I've read Winter Rose many times. It is one of my favorites. Every time I read it, I see something different, feel something new. The story, when broken down, is a classic love triangle, with some Otherworldly magic thrown in.
Granted, sometimes...more
I've read Winter Rose many times. It is one of my favorites. Every time I read it, I see something different, feel something new. The story, when broken down, is a classic love triangle, with some Otherworldly magic thrown in.
Granted, sometimes...more
Rois Melior is a free spirit that roams the woods barefoot looking for herbs that she uses to make potions, lotions, and remedies that she sells to help support her family as she is too wild to be marriage material. Her sister Laurel is the opposite of Rois. A calm domesticated betrothed gentle woman. One day Rois happens to see Corbet Lynn emerge from a hidden pond among the thick brier bushes.Rois becomes obsessed with the return of Corbet Lynn to his family estate. Rumors abound about the cur...more
This book, was... as Patricia McKillip's books often go, was very lovely in terms of the poetry of the language. I read it at a time when I was feeling overwhelmed, depressed, and vulnerable, and I think McKillip pulled out the language that described exactly how I felt. Seven years later, now that I've recovered from the bout of depression, I don't really remember much of this book. Just that it was the most important book for me at that time. I don't know if it's worth rereading, I don't know...more
The more I think about this book the more I like it. But reading it was a little tough. It's is based on a Scottish ballad of which I am not familiar. I really don't think that it would have affected my opinion. The story is a little hard to read in the beginning because of the way the author writes. It's like watching a movie where all the characters have accents and it takes you 10 or 15 minutes to get used to it.
The books imagery is very good, almost to the point of hallucinatory (which is wh...more
The books imagery is very good, almost to the point of hallucinatory (which is wh...more
Feb 20, 2013
Amanda
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
fairy-tales-and-fables,
fantasy
I've been hearing praise about McKillip's books for a while, so when I found out that she had written a "Tam Lin" retelling, I was excited to finally be introduced to her works.
By far my favorite aspect of Winter Rose is the language. Beautiful, nostalgic, and searching, it perfectly conveys the greater themes of the novel.
The hard winds sang their way into my dreams again that night. Long, white, insistent fingers of snow brushed against the window glass until I saw the storm out of memory, s...more
By far my favorite aspect of Winter Rose is the language. Beautiful, nostalgic, and searching, it perfectly conveys the greater themes of the novel.
The hard winds sang their way into my dreams again that night. Long, white, insistent fingers of snow brushed against the window glass until I saw the storm out of memory, s...more
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| Endicott Mythic F...: Winter Rose - Discussion | 14 | 41 | Jul 16, 2009 09:05am |
Patricia Anne McKillip is an American author of fantasy and science fiction novels, distinguished by lyrical, delicate prose and careful attention to detail and characterization. She is a past winner of the World Fantasy Award and Locus Award, and she lives in Oregon. Most of her recent novels have cover paintings by Kinuko Y. Craft. She is married to David Lunde, a poet.
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“But you must stop playing among his ghosts -- it's stupid and dangerous and completely pointless. He's trying to lay them to rest here, not stir them up, and you seem eager to drag out all the sad old bones of his history and make them dance again. It's not nice, and it's not fair.”
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