Widdershins

By Charles de Lint.

I don't think I was going to write about this, but I thought it might be a good idea to mention it. I wouldn't have known about it if my sister hadn't pointed it out to me and I guess some other people might be the same.

This is the much-needed sequel to de Lint's The Onion Girl, at the end of which Jilly was left pretty crippled. Both books are part of the author's loosely connected Newford series, which is about a fictional Canadian city which happens to sit pretty close to a boundary between our world and faery. In this book, the conflict between the Native American elements and the imported fairies from the Old World comes to a boil, among other things.

de Lint's usual genius for inventing characters goes on as usual in this book, although I do wonder what criteria he uses to decide whether a character will be narrated in the first or third person.

If you haven't read The Onion Girl, I would strongly advise reading it before this book. You can probably pick up a lot of what happens otherwise but I don't think it will be as satisfying, although admittedly I haven't read the rest of the series either. (I think Spirits in the Wires is the only one I've read besides these two.)