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Winter Rose, Patricia McKillip

I simply cannot get on with Patricia McKillip.  I don’t know what it is about her books that displease me.  The writing is lovely, her characters are likeable, the plots are interesting – and still, every single time I pick up one of her books, I end up stewing in displeasure and finally asking myself, Jenny, why are you torturing yourself like this?  Just put the damn book down and read something else.

Winter Rose is a retelling of Tam Lin.  I love that story!  As previously mentioned, I am reading a bunch of retellings of that story.  And there was nothing wrong with this book.  Rois is a clever and inquisitive heroine, trying to find out what kind of a curse Corbet Lynn is under, and whether his father killed his grandfather, and why he’s come back to rebuild his family estate.  I was interested in knowing all of these things!  I was interested in Rois’s demure sister Laurel, happily engaged yet strangely drawn to Corbet.  At least, I was for a while.  Then after a while, I didn’t care enough to finish the book, or even to read the end.

Riddle me this: Nobody was boring, but I got bored.