The Wood Wife

Rating:
Summary: A visit between worlds
Review: This book won some important awards, and its easy to see why. It's one of the best books I personally have ever read, and sure to open a door to faerie for any who read it. I would give it six stars if that were possible. It's a shame Ms. Windling doesn't publish her own stuff more often.
If you love this book, you may also be interested in works such as The Little Country and Forests of the Heart, both by Charles de Lint.

Rating:
Summary: A haunting weave of poetry, surrealism and desert trickster.
Review: This compelling tale of Maggie Black entering the realm of her mysteriously deceased poetry mentor takes her on a saga of personal discovery that entails desert devas, surrealism, poetry, and trust in her own heart. The incarnate elemental spirits of the desert intertwine themselves through the mysterious death of the English poet Davis Cooper, his long-departed Mexican wife's surrealistic art work, their unacknowledged stud son who becomes Maggie's love interest, and a small but intense cast of characters inhabiting the poet's desert retreat. Irrisistable. Apparently Windling has been editing scifi/fantasy anthologies for years. It's obvious she's absorbed the sense for creating a good story

Rating:
Summary: Wow... just WOW!
Review: This has to be the best book I have ever read. Hands down. Terri Windling takes you to a magickal place where reality transcends fantasy. There are references to one of fantasy's greatest artists- Brian Froud, whose imaginative artwork inspired the writing of this book. This book really makes you think about what you value in life and re-think everything you ever believed in... in a good way. I highly reccomend this book to anyone with an open mind and an honest heart.

Rating:
Summary: A Surprising Find at the Library!
Review: This is a compelling book, with characters you come to care about. I found this book quite by accident as I was leaving the library one day. I was passing the last stack of Fantasy/Sci-Fi and saw a book by Terry WIndling, a name I knew but couldn't remember why. (Turns out she edited a couple of anthologies I'd read.) Anyway, I was in the mood for a more contemporary story and the dust jacket blurb drew me in. The first chapter would not let me go.

Windling builds her story with snatches of poetry, bits of native lore, scenes with human characters, and dreamlike scenes with faerie characters. But this is not a faerie story in the normal sense of the words, and the influence of Brian Froud (who also designed the world of "The Dark Crystal" for all you Jim Henson fans) is plain throughout the descriptions of the spirit creatures Maggie Black meets along her journey. This story is part murder mystery, part romance, part fantasy, and all about Maggie discovering who she is and who was the man who drew her into this place in the American Southwest.

I was drawn in quite easily, and I found myself wondering where this all was going, what would happen in the end. And after all, isn't that what should happen with all the best stories? My only complaint is that so much of the final solution to the murder mystery was left to the very end of the story. Sure, some foreshadowing occurred, and Windling certainly gives the reader opportunities to figure out other things (like the true nature of some of the characters), but the solution feels too much like a "deus ex machina". Still, it all makes sense, it works for the most part with all the other parts of the story, and the conclusion is indeed just that, a conclusion. The story rambled only a little, but her descriptions of the Rincons made me want to visit there and see if I could hear the stones speaking to me and see the jackrabbits and coyotes who are not always what they seem.

Another thing this book did for me: It reminded me how much I like to write. Like Maggie, I feel like my life has for a long time been lived for others, and my writing has gone by the wayside. Perhaps I can find my way back to it now. Thanks, Terry.

Rating:
Summary: Magick and Myth in the Sonoran Desert
Review: This is the first full length novel of Terri Windling's that I've read. For years I've appreciated her seemingly tireless work in bringing us all sorts of fabulous short stories in her various anthologies, and I am not in the least disappointed in her novel. The Wood Wife is beautiful, brilliant, strange and powerful. Anyone who's ever been to Tucson will understand the magic that lives there, and how Windling captured that magic perfectly in her wonderful story. Being a poet myself, I was thrilled at Windling's use of poetry and representation of poets. All in all, an extremely satisfying book, and highly recommended by this die hard fan of Urban Fantasy literature! And congratulations to Terri Windling for receiving the 1997 Mythopoeic Award for this book. Well deserved!!

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Summary: This is a major work of magical realism.
Review: This novel is essentially the story of Maggie Black, poet and friend of Davis Cooper, himself a poet who has mysteriously drowned on a cool night outside Tuscon. Maggie has come to Tuscon to write his biography. Through piecing together his life and death, Maggie finds the road to her bliss in a landscape fraught with a living mythology. This novel is written with a true-eye description of the mythic beauty of the desert and is filled with luxuriously rich characters. It deserves to be widely read and taken to the heart.

Rating:
Summary: Even if you hate fantasy, you'll love this book!
Review: Truly, this book begs for and deserves a wider audience. While fantasy novels seldom make the bestseller list, this one should have because it is far more. Windling's carefully wrought plotting, endlessly interesting and intriguing characters, and awesome use of not just the folklore of the Desert West, where she sets her tale, but of other traditions as well, make for an incomparable read. Yes, there's poetry; yes, there's the ever-compelling questions of aesthetics; and yes, there's magic realism to rival Garcia Marquez and Borges. And it's all so prettily done. This rich entwining of art, music, magic, poetry gracefully lifts this novel from the merely entertaining to the sublimely mythic. Tricksters tales, zydeco, natural history, and even a bit of Tam Lin and the Wild Hunt; not only can't you put it down, you don't want it to end.

Rating:
Summary: Even if you hate fantasy, you'll love this book!
Review: Truly, this book begs for and deserves a wider audience. While fantasy novels seldom make the bestseller list, this one should have because it is far more. Windling's carefully wrought plotting, endlessly interesting and intriguing characters, and awesome use of not just the folklore of the Desert West, where she sets her tale, but of other traditions as well, make for an incomparable read. Yes, there's poetry; yes, there's the ever-compelling questions of aesthetics; and yes, there's magic realism to rival Garcia Marquez and Borges. And it's all so prettily done. This rich entwining of art, music, magic, poetry gracefully lifts this novel from the merely entertaining to the sublimely mythic. Tricksters tales, zydeco, natural history, and even a bit of Tam Lin and the Wild Hunt; not only can't you put it down, you don't want it to end.

Rating:
Summary: Mythopoeic Award Winner!
Review: We are very proud to announce that THE WOOD WIFE has won the 1997 Mythopoeic Award for Best Novel of the Year. Ms. Windling is also a five-time past winner of the prestigious World Fantasy Award. You can read a sample chapter of THE WOOD WIFE on the Tor Books web site (www.tor.com). For more information about Ms. Windling's other books (and "mythic art" work), we recommend her "Endicott Studio" web site (www.endicott-studio.com/). Fans of THE WOOD WIFE may be interested to know that Windling has also published a loosely-connected novella titled "The Color of Angels" in THE HORNS OF ELFLAND, an anthology of stories about magic, myth and music edited by Ellen Kushner (host of American Public Radio's "Sound and Spirit" program), Delia Sherman and Donald Keller.

Rating:
Summary: A Mesmerizing Page-Turner!
Review: What a magnificent first novel!!!Terri Windling caught me up in the first few pages and I couldn't let go until I had read ALL the pages!Maggie Black is a contemporary woman dealing with life in all itsfacets, as far as she knows. Maggiemoves to the desert to "bio" a fellow poet that she has corresponded with but never met. Hehas gifted her with his property in the Rincon Mtns. of Arizona. Andthere begins a magical, mystical tale of facets of life that few areable to see, of beings of alternaterealities. Through prose, poetry,and painting, Maggie begins to "see" the desert and its beings, as well as her human companions with an expanded consciousness. I foundthis to be a powerful novel. I loved it! I did remember some aspects of the novels by Carlos Castanedas of the magic of the desert. Great Book!!!