I was recently asked by a friend what I thought of this writer and had to confess I’d not read him yet. As we were in the middle of an enormous Border’s store at the time, I went looking through what they had. Lots of stuff, but this one was a reprint of one of his early classics, it said, so I thought it would be a good one to start with.

As my tagline says, this particular work would more rightly be considered rural fantasy. It takes place in some lovely-sounding Canadian woods and, briefly, in the desert around Tucson, AZ. I’m guessing the whole “urban fantasy” sub-genre label post-dates this book.

This is a lovely, dreamy, quiet read about a blocked painter trying to recover her vision and the people trying to help her. de Lint has a nice touch with what I call “scenery porn” (of which C.J. Box is the current master) to flesh out a delicately told story. The fantastic elements are very subtly woven in, really enhancing the plausiblity of the whole story.

This is not a book with a lot of surprises, but that’s not the only reason for reading a book. This one is a pure pleasure.

I was recently asked by a friend what I thought of this writer and had to confess I’d not read him yet. As we were in the middle of an enormous Border’s store at the time, I went looking through what they had. Lots of stuff, but this one was a reprint of one of his early classics, it said, so I thought it would be a good one to start with.

As my tagline says, this particular work would more rightly be considered rural fantasy. It takes place in some lovely-sounding Canadian woods and, briefly, in the desert around Tucson, AZ. I’m guessing the whole “urban fantasy” sub-genre label post-dates this book.

This is a lovely, dreamy, quiet read about a blocked painter trying to recover her vision and the people trying to help her. de Lint has a nice touch with what I call “scenery porn” (of which C.J. Box is the current master) to flesh out a delicately told story. The fantastic elements are very subtly woven in, really enhancing the plausiblity of the whole story.

This is not a book with a lot of surprises, but that’s not the only reason for reading a book. This one is a pure pleasure.