That was one thing Rinka had always loved about humans, in the books she had read-like the faeries, they were governed by their hearts, by their passions. Their love of food and beauty, their love of country and home, even their love of love itself.

Summerfall by Claire Legrand

My Review

“Anise,” Felazita whispered, tucking the blanket more closely around the child. The word dropped from her tongue like the beginning of a dance.

“I’d like to name her Anise.”

So, I finally got around to reading the Winterspell prequel novella. And it was okay. It wasn’t something that I really got into, but it made me appreciate stuff about Winterspell more, and reminded me about stuff I enjoyed about the book.

I wasn’t super into Rinka or Alban or their relationship, but I could understand why they were into each other, and I appreciated the background for the main story. I also liked seeing more faery characters, and it was nice to see faeries as a whole portrayed more sympathetically, as Anise and her cohort just didn’t do that for me in the main installment.

Summerfall really made me realize that one of the things I really enjoyed was the world of Cane and the way magic worked. It was cool to see more of it. I also liked seeing Cane in a more peaceful state, as opposed to the dystopian winter nightmare that it is for essentially the entirety of Winterspell. Aside from the epilogue, of course.

All in all, even though I didn’t really care much for the characters – especially since I already knew what had happened to them before I read it courtesy of the novel sequel – I appreciated a lot of other things this novella had. I also definitely recommend Summerfall to those who read and enjoyed the main story of the novel.

“Clara?” he questioned. His thumb circled softly against her palm, and love swelled in her like the rising sun.

“It will be a long journey,” she agreed, leaning down to kiss him, “but we will make it, together.”

Homecoming by Claire Legrand

My Review

Yes, Clara had thought of these things. She had prepared herself to expect differences-an older world, progress made without her, decisions come and gone.

But knowing something and actually seeing it were, she was now finding out, two radically different things.

I don’t have too much to say about Homecoming either. Not only is it even shorter than Summerfall, what with it being a short story as opposed to a novella, but it’s really not anything more than an extra epilogue, as it says on the tin.

It was nice to see all the characters reunite after everyone split off at the end of Winterspell. I also liked seeing how everyone grew as characters apart from one another, as that doesn’t usually happen; especially for an extra epilogue like this. It was really nice to see Cane mostly patched up though, and that was probably the thing I enjoyed the most about this short story.

I definitely recommend this if you enjoyed Winterspell and wanted to see that happy ending that didn’t quite make it into the novel. Especially since it’s free on Claire Legrand’s website. Really, there’s no excuse not to if you’re a fan of the novel.

Anyway, as always, thank you so much for reading, and I hope you have an amazing day/night!

See ya ~Mar

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