Solstice Wood by Patricia McKillip
As soon as she was old enough, Sylvia Lynn fled Lynn Hall, her family’s home in upstate New York, fleeing her past and the secret of her birth that only she and one other know. But when her grandmother, Iris, calls to tell her that her grandfather has died, Sylvia knows that she has to go back home. There, she learns that she isn’t the only one with a secret, and that the walls that keep the real world and the Otherworld from intermingling are starting to come apart, with potentially disastrous results for her young cousin, Tyler.
Like Winter Rose, which it’s a sequel to, Solstice Wood is a take on Tam Lin, only set in the modern day. As a Tam Lin story, and a story about small town secrets and magic (the secret knitting circle of witches is the best thing in the book), it’s great. The problem is that it’s a sequel to Winter Rose, and makes Winter Rose be set specifically in 19th (possibly late 18th) century New York. This…is not the impression you get while Winter Rose. While the time periods line up fairly well, the setting doesn’t. Winter Rose has a bit more of a “somewhere in real world time and place” feeling than other McKillips, but it’s distinctly a feeling of some indefinable place in the British isles, and the Otherworld is distinctly based on European mythology.
But if Winter Rose is set in what’s most likely 19th century New York, why are there no signs of American wildlife? No sign or mention of Native Americans? In both books, why is the mythology completely European, with no hint at all of Americana or Native American mythology? And yet, if it had simply never been said that the book was set in upstate New York, never mentioned what country Sylvia fled across, none of this would be a problem.
If you remove the establishment of the setting the book works wonderfully, and even manages to successfully pull off multiple first person narratives. It’s just when you apply the setting that that you run into problems. (And, really, as little as it’s mentioned, I almost wonder if McKillip just had to provide a setting since it was set in modern times.)
Like Winter Rose, which it’s a sequel to, Solstice Wood is a take on Tam Lin, only set in the modern day. As a Tam Lin story, and a story about small town secrets and magic (the secret knitting circle of witches is the best thing in the book), it’s great. The problem is that it’s a sequel to Winter Rose, and makes Winter Rose be set specifically in 19th (possibly late 18th) century New York. This…is not the impression you get while Winter Rose. While the time periods line up fairly well, the setting doesn’t. Winter Rose has a bit more of a “somewhere in real world time and place” feeling than other McKillips, but it’s distinctly a feeling of some indefinable place in the British isles, and the Otherworld is distinctly based on European mythology.
But if Winter Rose is set in what’s most likely 19th century New York, why are there no signs of American wildlife? No sign or mention of Native Americans? In both books, why is the mythology completely European, with no hint at all of Americana or Native American mythology? And yet, if it had simply never been said that the book was set in upstate New York, never mentioned what country Sylvia fled across, none of this would be a problem.
If you remove the establishment of the setting the book works wonderfully, and even manages to successfully pull off multiple first person narratives. It’s just when you apply the setting that that you run into problems. (And, really, as little as it’s mentioned, I almost wonder if McKillip just had to provide a setting since it was set in modern times.)