A review by acuriousreader
Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones

4.0

“Life,” he said softly, “is more than flesh. Your body is a candle, your soul the flame. The longer I burn the candle...” He did not finish.
“A candle unused is nothing but wax and wick,” I said.“I would rather light the flame, knowing it will go out than sit forever in darkness.”

Beware the goblin men and the wares they sell.


“There is music in your soul. A wild and untamed sort
of music that speaks to me. It defies all the rules and laws you humans set upon it. It grows from inside you, and I have a wish to set that music free.”

I was immediately pulled into Wintersong. The author's way of writing is dark and beautiful and instantly grabs your attention. Her attention to detail allows you to see everything as it should be in your mind.

The Goblin King is a ugly, beautiful, wicked, kind man. I know, it's confusing, but bare with me. The first look at The Goblin King/The Lord of Mischief is when him and the MC Liesl are young and playing. To her he looks like a child but seems much older, they play games with halfhearted bets. He tells her never to forget him, and that he wants her as his bride, to which she agrees... if she remembers him.

Fast forward to when they are older. Her brother Josef is her pride and joy, she would do anything to see him happy and succeeding, even keep herself in the shadows. Liesl is an extraordinary composer, but her brother is the Violinist... and it's a mans world. No one would take her seriously if she had tried to pursue her music, so she is happy, somewhat, to live through her brother and letting her music be played through him.

Her sister Kathe is the complete opposite of her. she is pretty, and seductive, and gets everything she wants, including the man Liesl has had a crush on for years. Hans seems to have taken no notice to Liesl at all and it comes as a surprise to her when he proposes to Kathe.


“You are a man with music in his soul. You are capricious, contrary, contradictory. You delight in childish games, and delight even more in winning. For a man of such intense piety, you are surprisingly petty. You are a gentleman, a virtuoso, a scholar, and a martyr, and of those masks, I like the martyr least of all. You are austere, you are pompous, you are pretentious, you are foolish.”

Usually I have a hard time liking female leads in books. half the time they are whiney and useless. or make completely idiotic choses for no reason at all, of course until the end when they somehow always manage to defeat or conquer the problem, seemly by them selves, and are praised for strength.... But Liesl, for me, was different. In the beginning there was a moment where I thought she would fall into the typical female lead category, but she surprised me and actually kept a logical head most of the time.

The same can't be said for her sister... an dill leave it at that.

The Goblin King is a twisted, dark, complexity of a character that throughout the entire read you have a love/hate relationship with. One moment he is the sweetest thing, and you get some back tory and history and you think you understand him, and then he does a 180 and you are right back to where you started. Which is fine, I love me a dark, cruel, misunderstood, brooding character.

The thing that bothered me with this book, and I hope is resolved in the sequel is the lack of answers. Everything is left open. What is the Goblin Kings name? Who was the first bride? What does her Grandmother have to do with it all? and loads more.

Despite that nothing really was answered and that, in all honesty, there wasn't a real climax, I really enjoyed this book. Something about it grabs you in and holds you and you are left wanting more and more and more, despite its flaws.


“The kiss is sweeter than sin and fiercer than temptation. I am not gentle, I am not kind; I am rough and wild and savage.”

I would rate Wintersong 4/5 Stars and definitely recommend it to anyone that loves dark fairytale type reads.