Rating: 
Summary: A DELIGHTFUL FIND FOR FAIRY TALE LOVERS
Review: A poor crofter is frightened of the enormous bear that finds its way to his door, but what frightens him more is the bear's mission...to take his favorite daughter to fairyland to marry an enchanted prince. The fortune the prince offers in exchange for Camille's hand proves too much temptation for the struggling family and Camille finds herself sacrificed to an unknown fate for the betterment of the rest of her family. A journey through beautiful and dangerous lands with the bear she feels strangely connected to brings her to the door of an amazing palace and into the arms of the man of her dreams. But the wonderful Prince Alan hides a dark secret that will eventually rip him from Camille's life...and plummet her into a quest through the wild lands of fairy.
Robbers, dragons, giants, and trolls cannot keep her from Alan's side, but there is one thing that may...a woman scorned.
An unconventional fairy tale that proved to be my favorite summer read. Romantic, passionate, magical, and full of adventure, anyone who liked the classic fairy tale, East of the Sun, West of the Moon, will fall head over heels for this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Stop before it's too late.
Review: Bite me, this book was bad. And I mean bad in the sense that I was faced with a decision:read this thing all the way through or be hit on by the greasy would-be Lothario sitting next to me on the long bus ride home. Even now I'm not sure which was preferable. As a rule of thumb I adore fairy tales, and I was very excited when I discovered this in the book store. But cheese'n'rice this was awful.Characters? Heck no, we don't need characters - all we need is shallow cardboard cut-outs with vague generlizations of personality. The heroine is beautiful, blonde, and nice, the hero is mysterious and handsome, the heroine's mother is greedy and her father is meek. Forget any sense of intelligence, charm, wit, humor, warmth, or sincerity that make characters worth following. When she wasn't being beautiful or kind, Camille, our lady heroine, was displaying such stupidity and lack of back bone I found myself cheering for the villian. With a year and a day to search before her beloved prince is lost to her, Camille wanders around aimlessly on the hope she'll find someone to tell her where she's going. Again and again she asks if the frog/sorceress/giant lizard-eating alien knows of a place 'west of the sun and east of the moon', and when she's told no, she weeps, faints, whines, moans. It starts to seem like she's doing everything she can not to look for him. Also, a word about the dialogue. No one speaks like this. I understand that the setting is fantastical and the people live in a time beyond recorded history, but even people then didn't speak in the convoluted, tongue twisting, awkward babble this cast spews. You get the feeling it would take these people twenty minutes to pass the butter. "My lord, do forgive me for my impertinece but I must beg a favor of your supreme worshipfulness. The yonder solidified dairy product which sits so daintily by your hand, if it be not troublesome to your lordship, I beg you would deign to pass it forthwith." "My lady, do not fear..." Sheesh. In other words, pick something else. Anything else. Go read The Monster At The End Of This Book, with Grover. At least your brain won't eat itself alive to stop the torment.
Rating:
Summary: Stop before it's too late.
Review: Bite me, this book was bad. And I mean bad in the sense that I was faced with a decision:read this thing all the way through or be hit on by the greasy would-be Lothario sitting next to me on the long bus ride home. Even now I'm not sure which was preferable. As a rule of thumb I adore fairy tales, and I was very excited when I discovered this in the book store. But cheese'n'rice this was awful. Characters? Heck no, we don't need characters - all we need is shallow cardboard cut-outs with vague generlizations of personality. The heroine is beautiful, blonde, and nice, the hero is mysterious and handsome, the heroine's mother is greedy and her father is meek. Forget any sense of intelligence, charm, wit, humor, warmth, or sincerity that make characters worth following. When she wasn't being beautiful or kind, Camille, our lady heroine, was displaying such stupidity and lack of back bone I found myself cheering for the villian. With a year and a day to search before her beloved prince is lost to her, Camille wanders around aimlessly on the hope she'll find someone to tell her where she's going. Again and again she asks if the frog/sorceress/giant lizard-eating alien knows of a place 'west of the sun and east of the moon', and when she's told no, she weeps, faints, whines, moans. It starts to seem like she's doing everything she can not to look for him. Also, a word about the dialogue. No one speaks like this. I understand that the setting is fantastical and the people live in a time beyond recorded history, but even people then didn't speak in the convoluted, tongue twisting, awkward babble this cast spews. You get the feeling it would take these people twenty minutes to pass the butter. "My lord, do forgive me for my impertinece but I must beg a favor of your supreme worshipfulness. The yonder solidified dairy product which sits so daintily by your hand, if it be not troublesome to your lordship, I beg you would deign to pass it forthwith." "My lady, do not fear..." Sheesh. In other words, pick something else. Anything else. Go read The Monster At The End Of This Book, with Grover. At least your brain won't eat itself alive to stop the torment.
Rating:
Summary: An enchanting fantasy
Review: Camille, the youngest of six daughters with a younger ailing brother, lives with her impoverished family near the end of the human world and the start of the fairy realm. She finds happiness singing while working in the field and playing games with her brother. The six female siblings have little hope for marriage because there is no money for a dowry. However, everything changes when a bear arrives at their hovel. The bear carries a message from Prince Alain of Summerwood stating he wishes to marry Camille and if his proposal is accepted he will pay a bride price that will leave her family in modest luxury. Camille and her brother say no, but the rest of her kin accept. Camille gives in when she realizes her brother can obtain needed medicine. Camille rides the bear through Springwood to Winterwood to Autumnwood until she finally reaches her destination of Summerwood. There she meets Prince Alain who wears a mask. Still, Camille and Alain begin to fall in love, but she tries to lift the curse that is destroying him without realizing the consequences of her actions. Still, she willingly will go into hell if need be to rescue her beloved. ONCE UPON A WINTER'S NIGHT is a superb adult fairy tale that children of all ages will enjoy. The story line is charming and magical as it takes readers on quite a ride in the realm of Fairy. Camille is a great female protagonist and the melancholy Alain, who finds brief respites with his beloved, is an enigmatic hero. Dennis McKiernan escorts fantasy lovers into an enchanted place that deserves more tales, perhaps those starring Alain's siblings and even a prequel starring his parents. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: Elegantly written!
Review: I am a huge fan of Dennis McKiernan, and devoured his books during my pregnancy. As always, here is another elegantly written book! It reminds me of the classic Fairy Tales I read as a child. If your a McKiernan fan, I definetly recommend it. If you've yet to read any of his works, trust me, once you do, your hooked for life! Mckiernan is a must read for Tolkien fans.
Rating: 
Summary: Good book.
Review: I have several books of Mckiernan's and I have read them and had trouble really getting to know them,but this was totally differant. From the first chapter I was hooked into reading all of it,this book was very slow and loving but picked up and really became sort of exciting. Camille is the youngest of six daughters but older than her brother Giles, she is invited by a big bear to be young Prince Alain's wife and if she accepts her family will never be poor again. She accepts and her life is never the same again. I reall enjoyed this book and I hope that Dennis is planning on writing another book with a heroine like Camille.
Rating:
Summary: A Faerytale of Love, Courage, and Strength
Review: I recieved this book for Christmas last year from my husband. I have always loved fairytales. This one had me hooked by the first page. I fell in love with it and have not found another as good since. I have since then read it twice and am about to read it a third time. It is a great tale about love and what people do for true love. I would reccomend this to any adult who still loves fairytales. I am now pregnant and plan to read it to my daughter, only omitting a few scenes that are defined as clean sex. The fact that it was changed from Scandanavian and made with french twist drew me to it even more. It is a classic tale witha new twist that everyone should read.
Rating:
Summary: A Faerytale of Love, Courage, and Strength
Review: I recieved this book for Christmas last year from my husband. I have always loved fairytales. This one had me hooked by the first page. I fell in love with it and have not found another as good since. I have since then read it twice and am about to read it a third time. It is a great tale about love and what people do for true love. I would reccomend this to any adult who still loves fairytales. I am now pregnant and plan to read it to my daughter, only omitting a few scenes that are defined as clean sex. The fact that it was changed from Scandanavian and made with french twist drew me to it even more. It is a classic tale witha new twist that everyone should read.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and addictive
Review: I'm usually not one to read books such as this, I usually go more for dark fantasy, however, I have to give this book 5 stars. I started it, unsure whether or not I'd even finish the book. I started to read it one night before I went to sleep, being forced to put the book down, I found I could not sleep because the book was all that was on my mind. The next day I put everything off and finished the book. I loved the book, I found myself trying to read as fast as I could just to find out what would happen in the end (as if the book could have a bad ending...). If you are a fan of stories such as Beauty and the Beast, and other love in hiding stories, you'll love this book. I recommend it highly.
Rating:
Summary: Good solid fairy tale rewrite.
Review: If you go for the fairy tale fiction trend, then this book fits like a glove. It's nothing spectacular, but nice and cozy to sit down with.
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