Solstice Wood

 

Solstice Wood / Patricia A. McKillip
New York : Berkley Pub. Group, 2006.
278 p.

I reread this book recently, after having first encountered it probably 15 years ago or so. I remembered it fondly, as McKillip is a favourite author. Upon rereading, I realized I didn't really like it as much, unfortunately! 

It's set in upstate New York, and is much more based in the real world than many of her other novels. In this one, Sylvia Lynn is called back to her childhood home when her grandfather dies. She doesn't want to go; Lynn Hall is a portal to the world of the Fae, and Sylvia finds it uncomfortable there. But she must, so she does, and meets up with old friends, family and of course Fae. 

There are some wonderful parts to this story. I loved the Fiber Guild, a group of women who get together regularly and work on fiber arts. Not just as stitching, though, but as a way of binding the walls holding the world of the Fae and of the regular world apart. This seems both logical and magical to me, I loved the concept. But McKillip undercuts this in the end, which confused me and made me wonder why.  

There were also some good characters here, including the changeling who takes the place of Sylvia's nephew - he had more depth than many of the other 'normal' characters. I liked the way she shared his perceptions, it felt like an outsider's observations. I also liked the character of the grandmother, but she did seem awfully dense considering she ran the Fiber Guild. She didn't clue in to the changeling until Sylvia said something, she didn't even clue in to the big secret of Sylvia's parentage - which was obvious to the reader almost immediately. 

What I didn't like as much was the narrative style; it's told from five different voices. While this conceptually makes sense -- trying to get at the truth from a variety of perspectives -- it does divide up this short book in ways that mean you don't really get into a character that deeply. And I wasn't really convinced by the conclusion. If the Fae are dangerous, or at least disruptive, why would the traditional arts of keeping the worlds separate no longer be needed? I felt that the concept wasn't as strong as some of her other books, but then most of her novels are fully fantasy, set entirely in another world. And I think I prefer those ones.