ARC Review: WINTERSPELL by Claire Legrand

The clock chimes midnight, a curse breaks, and a girl meets a prince . . . but what follows is not all sweetness and sugarplums.

New York City, 1899. Clara Stole, the mayor's ever-proper daughter, leads a double life. Since her mother's murder, she has secretly trained in self-defense with the mysterious Drosselmeyer.

Then, on Christmas Eve, disaster strikes.

Her home is destroyed, her father abducted--by beings distinctly not human. To find him, Clara journeys to the war-ravaged land of Cane. Her only companion is the dethroned prince Nicholas, bound by a wicked curse. If they're to survive, Clara has no choice but to trust him, but his haunted eyes burn with secrets--and a need she can't define. With the dangerous, seductive faery queen Anise hunting them, Clara soon realizes she won't leave Cane unscathed--if she leaves at all.

Inspired by The Nutcracker, Winterspell is a dark, timeless fairy tale about love and war, longing and loneliness, and a girl who must learn to live without fear.

I was so looking forward to Winterspell. Inspired by The Nutcracker, it promised a handsome prince, romance, a dark faery tale… how could I say no to that?! And let me tell you, this book ended up being seriously good.

Our stories say that near faery haunts things change when you’re not looking. Ground becomes sky, and sky becomes fire, and the tree roots over which you stumble are not roots at all but faery arms, seducing you underground.

They say that the faeries will charm you out of  your own skin if you let them.

Winterspell, ARC, 24%

Clara Stole, our heroine, starts out as a girl who sees herself as weak and helpless, unable to protect her family or herself in turn-of-the-20th-century New York. She’s the daughter of the mayor, but the mayor is also embroiled in a mafia-like crime syndicate and Clara and her family are surrounded on all sides by pretty terrible people.  She tries to protect her sister and father (who is pretty useless after the death of his wife a year before), but Clara blames herself for the way she is mistreated by others, and her outlook is pretty bleak in the beginning of this book.

However, one of my favorite things about Winterspell is how Clara slowly grows into herself. After her father is kidnapped and she’s forced to travel to the hidden faery world of Cane to find him, Clara starts to realize that she can change her future – she does have the power to protect herself  if she just sets fear and self-blame aside. She’s not without her faults – not immune to temptation or naivete – but she’s brave and determined. We’ve seen this sort of character-arc before, but I can say with certainty here that Legrand handled Clara’s growth in an exemplary manner, and I loved how realistically her outlook changed over the course of the book.

She screamed out to the world that it would not stifle her. No, she would rise above its violence. She would transcend it and make it her own.

Winterspell, ARC, 71%

The prince, Nicholas, was also wonderful. And (you know I’m here for the shipping) I loved Clara and Nicholas together. But of course I went into this knowing that, like The Nutcracker, Clara would basically be falling in love with an inanimate childhood playmate/confidante-turned-real-person. There are things about that relationship that are kind of weird, but for me, Legrand totally made it work.

The echoes of the statue sat upon him–her statue, which she had cherished and whispered to…

Winterspell, ARC, 21%

Clara grew up telling Nicholas everything about herself, about her life and her fears, so when Nicholas actually becomes a real person in her life, he definitely knows way more about Clara than Clara does about him. To Clara, he’s “just” the person she entrusted all her secrets to as she grew up – an obviously one-sided relationship. I wasn’t surprised at the way Clara immediately felt an attachment to Nicholas – she’d been attached to him her whole life. But I would’ve been worried if Clara immediately trusted him and fell for him right away. She doesn’t. Despite her feelings, she’s immediately distrustful of Nicholas and his position, and the likelihood that he just wants to use her to further his own goals – winning back the land of Cane and defeating its cruel new ruler, Anise.

As the story goes on, though, Clara learns a lot about Nicholas’s motivations, his character, his strengths and his failings. He and Clara are always on the same footing – he offers her advice but lets her make her own decisions and supports her when she does. And Clara offers this support right back, being there for him when he himself doesn’t think he can handle the situations they’re in. They’re both allowed to be broken, and they support each other. 

He let out a soft, broken laugh. His eyes shone with an anguish Clara understood well. Loss, horrible loss. Pain and anger, and the world being pulled out from beneath one’s feet.

Winterspell, ARC, 33%

I think you can tell that I loved these two, yes? Yes. Moving on.

Something else that I adored about Winterspell was the worldbuilding and setting. I loved everything about Cane. Well, maybe “love” isn’t the right word – it’s magical, but it’s also genuinely terrifying and often disturbing. These faeries are not the sugar-plum faeries from The Nutcracker, and they have absolutely no desire to be.

There’s also an awesome mix of magic and steampunk/clockwork technology in Cane, mixed with… it’s hard to explain… almost a futuristic feel to a lot of their technology. Clara comes from early-20th Century New York, so magical ginormous flatscreen faery billboards and flashing faery lights of the cities in Cane feel wonderfully… alien. There’s the word. And I loved that.

But despite all the good, there were a couple of issues I had with Winterspell, which mostly took place near the end and had to do with pacing. I felt like there was a section in the second half that dragged quite a bit, and then the ending felt like it took forever. There was a lot going on, but for some reason it just went on… and on… and on… I love that this is a standalone so I understand why the book is so long, but I do feel like it could’ve been pared down a little.

However, to contradict myself, another of my issues is that I felt like one character, who was given a lot of time in the second half of the book, wasn’t actually given enough time to really flesh out her character and make her truly sympathetic. I don’t want to say more than that because spoilers, but it’s just something I felt was a little off.

Finally, as much as I loved Clara and Nicholas and Clara/Nicholas, I was left wanting more when I finished the book – like I didn’t really get the real closure I wanted from their relationship. This might just be me being selfish and wanting more Clara/Nicholas on those last pages, but… I like to feel totally satisfied when finishing a story like this, especially since it is a standalone and there (probably) won’t be a sequel. I could’ve done with more Clara/Nicholas to help tie up those last emotional strings.

In conclusion…

Overall, I’m super pleased with Winterspell. There were a couple rough patches in the second half, but I have to give serious props to Legrand for pulling off this story in a standalone and not stretching it into more books. The character arcs are great, all the threads of the plot are wrapped up by the end; and though I was left wanting more Nicholas/Clara, that’s sort of the mark of a great couple, right? GIVE ME MOOOORE. ;)

But I loved the world, the magic, the technology – the fact that this wasn’t just a Nutcracker retelling, but rather was just inspired by it, and a whole new world rose up around it. There was so much imagery I won’t be forgetting in a hurry – including a killer Christmas tree and futuristic faery cities… All in all, Winterspell is definitely a book I’d recommend – to fans of retellings, fans of romantic fantasy, and fans of dark faery tales. This is definitely one that will stick with you for a while.