Book Review

Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones

This may be the hardest review I’ve ever had to write because there are just so many things trying to escape my mind at one time. My love of Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones has been broadcasted on my Twitter and I even made a super delicious cocktail for it. The prose is beautiful, lyrical, and it seems to surrounded you. This is definitely a book that drags you into it. You won’t be able to stop reading it until your eyes start to cross and you find yourself reading the same sentence over and over.

However, I will issue a vague warning on how everything ends. There is a sequel, which comes out in 2018 (*sobbing*), so I hope you’re picking up what I’m putting down.

Before we can get into the super good stuff, here’s the basics. Wintersong takes places in historically set Bavaria (19th century, I believe). Elisabeth, or Liesl, is the oldest of three children and an innkeeper’s daughter. Her sister is the beautiful one, getting married to Liesl’s crush. Her brother is the talented one, training to becoming a master violinist. Elisabeth has a gift as well, the gift of composition, but because she’s a girl, her father scolds her for spending time on her musical creations instead of being responsible and helping with the care and running of their inn.

Elisabeth’s grandmother is rather superstitious and warns the girls about the Goblin King, which causes vague, childhood memories to surface in Elisabeth’s mind. As the veil between the Underground and the human world reaches its thinnest, Elisabeth’s sister is kidnapped by the Goblin King to be his bride. Elisabeth is tasked with trying to save her, but it’s a lose/lose game to be quite honest. Because hello…she’s dealing with the Goblin King.

I’m sure you’re picking up Labyrinth parallels.

David Bowie in tight pants tapping a riding crop on his foot

But if the possibility of some David Bowie fantasies doesn’t tempt you, Wintersong also has elements of:

  • The Phantom of the Opera
  • The Little Mermaid
  • Hades & Persephone
  • Beauty and the Beast

I feel a little bit like a very shouty man in an informercials. WE’VE GOT BROODING. MORE SEXUAL TENSION THAT YOU CAN SHAKE A STICK AT. ORDER TODAY AND WE’LL THROW IN A BONUS UGLY CRY FOR JUST THE COST OF EXTRA SHIPPING AND HANDLING.

While romance plays a large part of Elisabeth and the Goblin King’s relationship, Wintersong is more about Elisabeth coming into her own. When she enters the Underground, she’s unsure of herself and her talents. She’s so used to giving up her dreams for the sake of her siblings being able to pursue theirs that being selfish is foreign to her. But as she learns to embrace her musical gifts, her blunt honesty, and her femininity, there’s great satisfaction in seeing the Goblin King’s growing fear of this bold, blossoming woman. While I, of course, want a man to adore me, there’s a part of me that also wants to be found intimidating.

Charlize Theron saying the key to walking like an evil queen is to think about murder

The Goblin King is more than just the mischievous anti-hero that we’ve come to associate with David Bowie, tight pants, and that…codpiece. We come to learn that the Goblin King is just as trapped in the Underground as Elisabeth is, and it’s heartbreaking seeing him war with his exhaustion at playing this role. He is no longer a man. He’s a myth. The Goblin King’s true identity, who he was before he was king, remains a secret, but we get little glimpses of who he used to be. Elisabeth desperately wants to know the man, who can play the violin and often takes solace in the Underground’s chapel.

There were also times when I started humming “Tale As Old As Time” in my head.

He cleared his throat. “Are you—are you all right, my queen?”

So distant. So formal. He always called me my dear, said in that sarcastic tone of his, or else it was Elisabeth, always Elisabeth. He was the only one who called me that, and I wanted to be Elisabeth for him again.

“I am fine, thank you, mein Herr.” I matched his distance with my own. The chasm between us grew to twice its size. I ached to bridge it, but did not know how.

 

Beauty and the Beast dancing

Just a little change
Small to say the least
Both a little scared
Neither one prepared…

Jae-Jones’ writing is so descriptive and entrancing. The goblins and the Underground are detailed with this mix of dark romanticism, a twisted glamour where nothing is as it seems. That said, because of the detail, the reading was dense at times. It’s like eating a rich meal. You love every bite, but you know you’re going to get sick if you gorge yourself on it. You have to slow down and savor.

But I was afraid. I had danced and feasted at the Goblin Ball, but this was something entirely different: wild, untamed, and feral. The Goblin Ball, hosted by the Goblin King, had had a veneer of civilized behavior overlaying its orgiastic abandonment, but there were no such niceties now. This was not hedonistic indulgence; this was savagery. I could smell blood—freshly spilled. It smelled of copper and iron and flesh. Twining, writhing shapes copulated in the corners of my vision, and I thought of the little objet d’art in my barrow room that depicted the nymph and the satyr. Music wailed on pipes and horns and catgut lutes—rude, rustic, without refinement. The goblin wine took the edges off my fear, but the chill of it still ran through my veins.

Music also plays a large part in the story in Elisabeth’s identity, in the dysfunction it causes between her and her family, in the growing attraction between Elisabeth and the Goblin King. But I am not musically inclined. I took band for one year in 6th grade, where I begrudgingly played the flute after being denied my choice of playing the alto sax. That’s the extent of my musical knowledge, so the jargon used to describe various elements of musical composition went right over my head.

As I mentioned before, there’s a sequel planned, and thank god, because the ending made me cry. Like shoulder-shaking, full on snot bubbles, crying. The ending is bittersweet, but it’s not the ending I was hoping for and there are still a lot of questions left unanswered. The continuation of Elisabeth and the Goblin King’s story (even if I do have to wait a year) was the only thing keeping me from going into a full blown book hangover.

Everything hurts and I'm dying gif

For those who love Labyrinth or any of the elements I mentioned above, please get this book. It’s whimsical, spellbinding, and full of things that will make fairy tale lovers squee. This is Jae-Jones’ debut novel and because of Wintersong, you can guarantee that I’ll be following her writing closely, whether it’s up and down the Escher staircase or knee-deep into the bog of eternal stench.

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Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones

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  1. Susan says:

    I don’t know how many minutes I stared at that gif of Jareth tapping his boot with his riding crop/cane thingy. When I came to, I put the book on my wish list. Thanks for the. . . review.

  2. Antipodean Shenanigans says:

    I am first in line for this book when it comes into the local library and I CANT WAIT! I’m glad it lives up to its premise.

  3. jackalack says:

    The writing is quite lyrical but I just couldn’t come to like–even tolerate–Elisabeth. She was whiny, moody, and a little odd in her temper tantrums. It was a DNF for me, and I’m so sad because the story was gorgeous.

  4. Melissandre says:

    Thank you. I will certainly be buying this later, and also I have “Underground” from Labyrinth in my head. How long will that last? Only forever…not long at all…

  5. Val says:

    Seriously, that was a great review and I totally agree with you: “WE’VE GOT BROODING. MORE SEXUAL TENSION THAT YOU CAN SHAKE A STICK AT. ORDER TODAY AND WE’LL THROW IN A BONUS UGLY CRY FOR JUST THE COST OF EXTRA SHIPPING AND HANDLING”.

    I loved Wintersong.

    I don’t know how or why but I knew this book was going to be one of favourites and would break my heart the moment Liesl asked what happens to the Goblin King after that thing and he says she was the only person to ask him that. </3

    Wintersong was beautiful and it broke my heart.

    *insert feels gif here*

  6. starlightarcher says:

    There’s gonna be a sequel??!? After the FEELINGS-MANGLER that was the end of this book I honestly don’t know if I want to say “thank fuck” or “why god, you bastard?!” Because I did sit and gobble the thing down in one sitting, and staggered away from the wreckage, like a freaking disaster survivor. I really hope the One Dark Crown book coming out later this year ends happily. Because between this one and King’s Cage (newest Red Queen book), it has been a rough year for feelings.

  7. I’ve been waffling on this. Thanks for this review!!! Getting NOW!

  8. KateB says:

    I read this review, immediately put the book on hold at my library, and it came in today. So excited to start!

  9. Gingerly says:

    As a huge Labyrinth fan girl I feel like this is a book I’ve been waiting decades to read, unfortunately I think the weight of my own expectations might have broken it for me.

    Can confirm Jae-Jones writing is lyrical and quite lovely, but I felt the characterisations were weak (Elisabeth was whiny and quite frankly annoying through a lot of the book, YMMV) and I actually thought her sister the vapid “beauty” was the more intriguing of the two.

    Amanda’s summary of the plot is nice and succinct which is good because pace and plotting were all over the place; the biggest trouble is that there is no driving action and midway through it feels like all plot gets buried under the weight of the lyricism.

    Again, YMMV, but I’m a person who needs a plot or at the very least compelling character growth to speed things along, and this was a very nearly DNF for me. The saving grace is the mystery of the Goblin King’s past.

    Holly Black’s perfect balance of lyrical plot driven narrative soaked in the ugly side of the face has spoiled me. Also I feel I read this done better with Clare Dunkle’s Hollow Kingdom.

  10. SusanH says:

    I have to agree with Gingerly, unfortunately. The book started strong for me, but as a life-long Labyrinth fan, perhaps I was just hoping for too much. I thought the pacing was off, and there was a lot of repetition. It was one of those books that had me wishing I could have had a hand in the editing – removing about 100 pages (along with 75% of the times we are told that the heroine is plain and the Goblin King’s eyes are just like David Bowie’s) could have led to a much better book. Ultimately, it read like fanfiction of Labyrinth crossed with The Goblin Market to me.

  11. Penny says:

    I absolutely LOVED this book, and although I’m usually a terribly slow reader, I practically stayed up all night and read it in 2 days. But the ended though! I just sat there ugly crying because THEY WERE MEANT TO ME TOGETHER HOW COULD SOMETHING LIKE THIS HAPPEN! But after that initial shock, I sat there with my box of tissues and thought.

    Does this mean the world’s gonna be thrown into another winter?! (I don’t know if I could stand it if he married someone else(or is it a type of Persephone thing where she leaves for autumn and winter but stays for spring and summer? That could actually be pretty cool….))

    And why couldn’t the Goblin King help her out of the Underground during those last few pages? At least he could help her even if she wasn’t Queen anymore.

    Although it made the getting out of the maze really tense and dramatic, thinking back on it, it really didn’t make sense to me.

    I almost feel bad about questioning such a good book but I feel like those parts are missing. Just as likely,(if not more) is that I’m just missing something.

    Anyhoo, I hope all you guys have a nice day <3

    Thanks for any reply!

  12. JenniferT says:

    I’m going to read this based on this review. I’ve seen conflicting reviews on AMZN, and I’ve hesitated to bite the bullet. I’ll let you know what I think when I get done. (Probably 3 AM tomorrow)

  13. JenniferT says:

    So, I finished this last night. I am not as in love with it as I’d hoped to be.

    Firstly, if there’s sex in a book, I want it to read like sex and not a PG-13 movie. Given the subject matter (years of grooming, kidnapping, a coerced marriage), I really think the sex scenes could have been a little more explicit. Just my preference. This is a gripe I have for most romance novels that include sex scenes but skirt around the details.

    The writing is amazing. The imagery evoked from her prose kept me going to the end.

    Even though I took music for many years, this book is a bit deep in musical theory for most readers, me included.

    I didn’t hate it at all, but I didn’t love it 100% either. I probably won’t read Shadowsong.

  14. Amanda says:

    @JenniferT: Funny you should say that! We did a podcast episode with the author and she said that the sex scenes were much more explicit in the first manuscript.

  15. JenniferT says:

    Oh, but I will agree with everyone else about the heartbreaking end of the book. O.M.G.

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