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Winter Lord
On investigating the strange death of her ex-husband, Rob, a young businesswoman realizes her own life is in jeopardy as she clashes with Moira Daoine, the flame-haired beauty who had possessed Rob body and soul.
Rob had discovered the unholy truth about the Daoines and paid the hellish penalty. As Jane realizes she's fallen under the spell of Moira's brother, Finn Daoine, she steps into a world of godlike beings and demonic forces that no mere mortal was meant to enter...
Rob had discovered the unholy truth about the Daoines and paid the hellish penalty. As Jane realizes she's fallen under the spell of Moira's brother, Finn Daoine, she steps into a world of godlike beings and demonic forces that no mere mortal was meant to enter...
186 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
About the author
Jean Brooks-Janowiak
1 book6 followersAka Anne Merton Abbey
Together with Janice Young Brooks wrote as Valerie Vayle, but would later use the name exclusively after obtaining the legal rights to the name.
Together with Janice Young Brooks wrote as Valerie Vayle, but would later use the name exclusively after obtaining the legal rights to the name.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 26, 2024
This was a pretty unique mix of horror, gothic romance, and modern fairy tale. It centers on Jane, newly arrived to the snowy and secluded town of Winterburn to both attend the funeral of her ex-husband, as well as investigate the cause of his mysterious drowning death. She meets an oddly enchanting-yet-sinister brother and sister, who act almost like royalty and claim to have known her former husband, and she soon becomes ensnared in their strange lives in their giant mansion, feeling drawn to them despite their weird eccentricities. What is the strange spell they seemingly cast on others who come in contact with them? Why does it seem they can read minds? Why do they sometimes slip into an ancient-sounding language? Why do they seem much older than their appearance? And what's with their savage, murderous horses? None of this is normal.
I found this to be a fun, almost cozy read, and its 180-some pages were the perfect length for building up the mystery and tension without overstaying its welcome. It's perhaps a bit too focused on the romance aspect for my taste (the "I'll kill him...oh God, I think I love him!"-type internal dialogue is pretty cringe and one time made me want to have always been dead), but the spooky, almost dreamlike atmosphere throughout more than made up for it. And the homicidal horses were pretty cool, too. The only real negative (other than the occasional sappiness) is the copyediting, which was atrocious in some places, requiring the reader to read certain paragraphs out of order to get the gist of what's going on. One sentence is even cut off entirely during the middle of a pretty dramatic scene. But it wasn't enough to ruin the book for me, as the plot was engaging and very well-written.
Overall, a nice, creepy read for a cold winter night. I'd be up for checking out more of Ms. Brooks-Janowiak's oeuvre, but it appears to be made up almost entirely of historical romances, which aren't really my thing.
I found this to be a fun, almost cozy read, and its 180-some pages were the perfect length for building up the mystery and tension without overstaying its welcome. It's perhaps a bit too focused on the romance aspect for my taste (the "I'll kill him...oh God, I think I love him!"-type internal dialogue is pretty cringe and one time made me want to have always been dead), but the spooky, almost dreamlike atmosphere throughout more than made up for it. And the homicidal horses were pretty cool, too. The only real negative (other than the occasional sappiness) is the copyediting, which was atrocious in some places, requiring the reader to read certain paragraphs out of order to get the gist of what's going on. One sentence is even cut off entirely during the middle of a pretty dramatic scene. But it wasn't enough to ruin the book for me, as the plot was engaging and very well-written.
Overall, a nice, creepy read for a cold winter night. I'd be up for checking out more of Ms. Brooks-Janowiak's oeuvre, but it appears to be made up almost entirely of historical romances, which aren't really my thing.
January 8, 2019
Usually when I pick up these random little books from the SF section, the covers are more interesting to me than the book itself. It's almost pointless for me to even look in that section, because I always want some sort of romance along with the story and never, ever find a satisfying one, even in the books that seem to promise such a thing. But this random little book that I almost didn't even buy because of all my previous disappointments delivered not only a hot guy, but a sexy romance too! Oh, and some scary faeries and killer horses. The usual.
Besides that, the writing was rich and descriptive. Each character was fully fleshed and realistic. Some things were a bit dated, but most books written in this era often are. I was so surprised by how much I liked this from the very beginning. I didn't always love the way the plot moved forward, and even though the whole book took place over a couple of years, the passage of time wasn't really clear. There were some details I would like to see expanded on, but this was under 200 pages after all, and mostly it was very satisfying.
My edition wasn't edited all that great, however. One page in particular had a few of the lines mixed up for some reason, so I had to decode a couple of paragraphs by reading out of order. And once or twice I was pretty sure there should have been a scene break but there was none (hence the passage of time being unclear).
Anyway, I was really excited about this book and wish I'd discovered it sooner!
Besides that, the writing was rich and descriptive. Each character was fully fleshed and realistic. Some things were a bit dated, but most books written in this era often are. I was so surprised by how much I liked this from the very beginning. I didn't always love the way the plot moved forward, and even though the whole book took place over a couple of years, the passage of time wasn't really clear. There were some details I would like to see expanded on, but this was under 200 pages after all, and mostly it was very satisfying.
My edition wasn't edited all that great, however. One page in particular had a few of the lines mixed up for some reason, so I had to decode a couple of paragraphs by reading out of order. And once or twice I was pretty sure there should have been a scene break but there was none (hence the passage of time being unclear).
Anyway, I was really excited about this book and wish I'd discovered it sooner!
July 31, 2020
3.5 stars. Review originally published at Fantasy Literature.
Winter Lord (1983) was an impulse Alibris buy for me. Under a different name, Jean Brooks-Janowiak wrote a Tudor romance that’s been one of my comfort reads since I first read it in high school. That book had an eerie little vein of the supernatural running through it, so when I learned that Brooks-Janowiak had also written a fantasy novel, I decided to check it out. What with it being an earlier book, in a different genre, and sporting a rather uninformative cover, I went in with no idea of what to expect. As it turns out, I enjoyed it quite a bit, though with some caveats.
Jane O’Neill travels to the remote town of Winterburn, with her brother Brian and their friend Audrey, to attend the funeral of her ex-husband, Rob, who has drowned there under mysterious circumstances. Found with him were his ruined camera and a note with a cryptic quote from H. Rider Haggard. At the funeral, Jane meets glamorous Moira Daoine, who was once Rob’s lover, and her equally gorgeous brother Finn. When Jane and company are invited to tea at the Daoines’ house, and subsequently snowed in there, they are drawn into a seductive and dangerous world.
It’s not just that Moira and Finn are sexy. There are also the lushly described furnishings and food, which really made me want to visit this house even though I’m sure it would get me killed somehow. (Probably by the carnivorous horses. Yes, carnivorous horses. Scary critters.) But Moira and Finn are definitely sexy. They exert a powerful influence over people. Anyone who gets involved with them first experiences a burst of creativity, then meets an untimely end. Brian becomes entangled with Moira, and Jane with Finn, even though she knows it’s a terrible idea. And Finn is secretly working toward a goal that will put both him and Jane in great danger.
What follows is an escalation of tension as Jane finds Finn harder and harder to extricate from her life, and must figure out what’s going on — and what she wants to do about it — before it results in her death, or Brian’s, or Finn’s. The settings, both the opulent ones and the creepy ones, are vividly brought to life.
At 184 pages, Winter Lord is written pretty economically. Everything that doesn’t connect to the main plot is lightly sketched in; I still don’t know a lot about Jane’s difficult parents or what her company does, and I’m not sure we even find out what state Winterburn is in. This mostly works in the book’s favor, because it creates the sense that everything outside of the Daoine drama is fading into the background of Jane’s life, like the uncanny happenings with that family are the only things that are “real.”
It’s dated in some ways. There’s the obvious stuff, like the lack of cell phones and Internet, and there’s also Jane’s love of driving gloves. The biggest thing, though, is the amount of physical fighting that happens between Jane and Finn. They both hit each other. This was, I think, more common in the romance novels of the 70s and early 80s, but was jarring to me in 2020. This isn’t really a healthy relationship. Obsessive, weird, steamy, interesting to read about, yes — but definitely not what I’d want in real life.
The other caveat is that the copyediting is kind of a mess. There are typos, time jumps without line breaks, and a couple of points where sentences are printed out of order. It can take a moment to reorient yourself when you run into one of these.
Winter Lord is hard to categorize. Fantasy/horror/romance? Whatever it is, it’s a darkly intriguing novel, and not a big time commitment. If you like stories of the old-school faeries with teeth, and you happen to spot a copy at the used bookstore, it’s worth a try.
Winter Lord (1983) was an impulse Alibris buy for me. Under a different name, Jean Brooks-Janowiak wrote a Tudor romance that’s been one of my comfort reads since I first read it in high school. That book had an eerie little vein of the supernatural running through it, so when I learned that Brooks-Janowiak had also written a fantasy novel, I decided to check it out. What with it being an earlier book, in a different genre, and sporting a rather uninformative cover, I went in with no idea of what to expect. As it turns out, I enjoyed it quite a bit, though with some caveats.
Jane O’Neill travels to the remote town of Winterburn, with her brother Brian and their friend Audrey, to attend the funeral of her ex-husband, Rob, who has drowned there under mysterious circumstances. Found with him were his ruined camera and a note with a cryptic quote from H. Rider Haggard. At the funeral, Jane meets glamorous Moira Daoine, who was once Rob’s lover, and her equally gorgeous brother Finn. When Jane and company are invited to tea at the Daoines’ house, and subsequently snowed in there, they are drawn into a seductive and dangerous world.
It’s not just that Moira and Finn are sexy. There are also the lushly described furnishings and food, which really made me want to visit this house even though I’m sure it would get me killed somehow. (Probably by the carnivorous horses. Yes, carnivorous horses. Scary critters.) But Moira and Finn are definitely sexy. They exert a powerful influence over people. Anyone who gets involved with them first experiences a burst of creativity, then meets an untimely end. Brian becomes entangled with Moira, and Jane with Finn, even though she knows it’s a terrible idea. And Finn is secretly working toward a goal that will put both him and Jane in great danger.
What follows is an escalation of tension as Jane finds Finn harder and harder to extricate from her life, and must figure out what’s going on — and what she wants to do about it — before it results in her death, or Brian’s, or Finn’s. The settings, both the opulent ones and the creepy ones, are vividly brought to life.
At 184 pages, Winter Lord is written pretty economically. Everything that doesn’t connect to the main plot is lightly sketched in; I still don’t know a lot about Jane’s difficult parents or what her company does, and I’m not sure we even find out what state Winterburn is in. This mostly works in the book’s favor, because it creates the sense that everything outside of the Daoine drama is fading into the background of Jane’s life, like the uncanny happenings with that family are the only things that are “real.”
It’s dated in some ways. There’s the obvious stuff, like the lack of cell phones and Internet, and there’s also Jane’s love of driving gloves. The biggest thing, though, is the amount of physical fighting that happens between Jane and Finn. They both hit each other. This was, I think, more common in the romance novels of the 70s and early 80s, but was jarring to me in 2020. This isn’t really a healthy relationship. Obsessive, weird, steamy, interesting to read about, yes — but definitely not what I’d want in real life.
The other caveat is that the copyediting is kind of a mess. There are typos, time jumps without line breaks, and a couple of points where sentences are printed out of order. It can take a moment to reorient yourself when you run into one of these.
Winter Lord is hard to categorize. Fantasy/horror/romance? Whatever it is, it’s a darkly intriguing novel, and not a big time commitment. If you like stories of the old-school faeries with teeth, and you happen to spot a copy at the used bookstore, it’s worth a try.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews