Helpful Score: 1
Winner of the Mythopoeic Award.
I really wish I hadn't read this so close to Charles DeLint's 'Memory and Dream'. It was written two years later (in 1996), and DeLint did a blurb for it, so I suppose he deserves credit - but the theme of this story is extremely similar. Both novels deal with the concept of creatures/spirits of myth and legend being given physical form through the work of contemporary artists - and the emotional angst and physical danger that this power can lead to.
However, I liked this book a lot better - I am really a huge fan of Terri Windling in general, and I liked the characters, the setting, and just felt that it flowed really well...
Maggie Black, a sophisticated, successful writer, is unexpectedly named in the will of a famous poet that she had enjoyed a long correspondence with, but never met. Having inherited his house and papers, although this is rendered bittersweet by the fact that the poet appears to have been murdered under mysterious circumstances, she goes to her new property in rural Arizona with the hopes of writing a biography of the man.
In the Sonoran desert, she finds more than she bargained for, not only in the culture shock of the Southwest and the unexpected attraction of a young man she meets there... but going through the poet's papers, she discovers fascinating information about the poet's late wife, the mystical painter Anna Naverra, and begins to uncover a web of secrets. But more than family drama may be involved, as strange visitations and unexplainable phenomena begin to occur...
Originally written as part of a project in tribute to Brian Froud, one might feel that his artwork is mentioned a few too many times... but that's a very minor point in a very enjoyable story...
I really wish I hadn't read this so close to Charles DeLint's 'Memory and Dream'. It was written two years later (in 1996), and DeLint did a blurb for it, so I suppose he deserves credit - but the theme of this story is extremely similar. Both novels deal with the concept of creatures/spirits of myth and legend being given physical form through the work of contemporary artists - and the emotional angst and physical danger that this power can lead to.
However, I liked this book a lot better - I am really a huge fan of Terri Windling in general, and I liked the characters, the setting, and just felt that it flowed really well...
Maggie Black, a sophisticated, successful writer, is unexpectedly named in the will of a famous poet that she had enjoyed a long correspondence with, but never met. Having inherited his house and papers, although this is rendered bittersweet by the fact that the poet appears to have been murdered under mysterious circumstances, she goes to her new property in rural Arizona with the hopes of writing a biography of the man.
In the Sonoran desert, she finds more than she bargained for, not only in the culture shock of the Southwest and the unexpected attraction of a young man she meets there... but going through the poet's papers, she discovers fascinating information about the poet's late wife, the mystical painter Anna Naverra, and begins to uncover a web of secrets. But more than family drama may be involved, as strange visitations and unexplainable phenomena begin to occur...
Originally written as part of a project in tribute to Brian Froud, one might feel that his artwork is mentioned a few too many times... but that's a very minor point in a very enjoyable story...
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