Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones is out today! This paranormal romance is full of twists and turns. Take a moment to learn a little bit about the Goblin King…
All her life, nineteen-year-old Liesl has heard tales of the beautiful, mysterious Goblin King. He is the Lord of Mischief, the Ruler Underground, and the muse around which her music is composed. Yet, as Liesl helps shoulder the burden of running her family’s inn, her dreams of composition and childish fancies about the Goblin King must be set aside in favor of more practical concerns.
But when her sister Käthe is taken by the goblins, Liesl journeys to their realm to rescue her sister and return her to the world above. Down in the Underground, Liesl discovers that the Goblin King still inspires her—musically, physically, emotionally. Yet even as her talent blossoms, Liesl faces an impossible choice. As she grows closer to the Goblin King, both of them must learn just what it is they are each willing to sacrifice: her life, her music, or the end of the world.
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Wintersong pulled me in immediately. It’s such a magical world, and the author does an amazing job building it together and describing it and her characters.
Liesl is smart and full of creativity, but she puts all that aside for her brother’s talent and her family’s existence. She stops thinking about her childhood friend in the Goblin Grove and grows up. When it comes time for the Lord of Mischief to take a bride, he naturally goes back to the girl he repeatedly ask to marry him when she was younger.
When she doesn’t remember him, he kidnaps her sister and makes it a game. If she can get her sister back, he’ll let them leave. If she fails, he’ll keep her sister.
Eventually what we get is Elizabeth saving her sister and offering herself as the bride in her place. I was completely on board with this because there’s a special kind of chemistry between Liesl and the Goblin King then the rest of the novel played out, and I became a little frustrated.
We find out that Liesl will die if she stays in the Underground and the Goblin King can’t leave the Underground. If you know me, it won’t surprise you when I say that I automatically started calculating how this would all work out because I don’t do well when love stories don’t end with a nice bow.
If you’re looking for a fairy tale, this isn’t it. It’s steeped in folklore and magic, but sadly, our leads can’t work around old laws. This was a quick read, and slightly more erotic than I would imagine a YA novel to be. I’m definitely not complaining, one of my favorite things about this novel was the relationship between the leads.
There will be a companion novel for this book, but there are no details on who it will follow. I’d imagine Liesl’s brother, but I really hope that it will offer some closure this couple.
S. Jae-Jones (called JJ) is an artist, an adrenaline junkie, and erstwhile editrix. When not obsessing over books, she can be found jumping out of perfectly good airplanes, co-hosting the Pub(lishing) Crawl podcast, or playing dress-up. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she now lives in North Carolina, as well as many other places on the internet, including Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, and her blog.
Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for providing an advanced copy of this novel!