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The Dead of Winter
Chris Priestley
Bloomsbury USA Childrens (215 pp, .99 hardcover, January 31, 2012)
Reviewed by Michaele Jordan

First and foremost, the reader needs to know that The Dead of Winter is a traditional ghost story. If you are looking for a modern view point or a cross-genre twist, this is not the book for you. It cleaves to Gothic imagery and draws on many classic antecedents.

It is set in the Victorian era; the year is not specified, but the setting makes it plain. Like many earlier works, it is presented as the journal of a first person narrator, told from a distant future, and opening with a solemn assertion that the contents of the book are entirely true, little as the reader may be inclined to believe them. Preface aside, Priestley draws on a Dickensian model to provide the young protagonist so necessary to a children’s book.

The story opens with Michael Vyner at his mother’s funeral. He is now an orphan, as his father has been dead for years. In fact, the father—an army man—died heroically, saving the life of his superior officer, Sir Stephen Clarendon. Sir Stephen has always been grateful, but Michael’s mother was too proud to accept much assistance, so Michael has never met the man his father died to save or even been encouraged to take pride in his father’s courageous sacrifice.

All that is about to change. Having no surviving family, Michael is made Sir Stephen’s ward, and summarily shipped off to spend Christmas with his new guardian, prior to being enrolled in a prestigious new school. His situation is not genuinely intolerable, as Sir Stephen is both wealthy and well-intentioned, but Michael is still too bereft to appreciate any kindness done him, and takes the sudden changes in his circumstances badly. It is a sullen and ill-mannered child that first comes to Hawton Mere.

Mr. Priestley comes into his own in his description of Hawton Mere. He vividly renders a flat, forbidding landscape in which miles of dank fenland suggest a hopeless future and an empty heart. Before Michael’s carriage even reaches the house, he is subjected to his first spectral apparition, a woman in white so seemingly solid that he demands the carriage be stopped and an immediate search conducted for the piteous figure. Of course, no such woman is found; nor is there anywhere in the vicinity she could possibly hide. So Michael arrives in his new home already under suspicion of being either a liar or crazy or both.

Sir Stephen may mean well, but he is decidedly peculiar, and afflicted with an incapacitating nervous disorder. His sister Charlotte is beautiful and mysterious and only slightly less peculiar than her brother. Their home is a monstrous antique pile protected by a moat; its dark and maze-like interior is equipped with numerous shadowy alcoves and a tomb-like priest hole. Within this setting—itself, worthy of The House of Usher—the echoes of earlier tragedy still linger. Lady Clarendon inexplicably fell from a balcony to her death some years before and Sir Stephen has never recovered from the loss of his dear wife. Nor has the memory of his cruel father ever faded.

Michael is plagued almost immediately by inexplicable sounds of banging, weeping and groaning. Panels that have been sealed shut for decades open suddenly to trap him. Of course, no one else can see or hear any of these things but him. And as Christmas draws closer, the apparitions around him grow progressively more dangerous.

It is all resolved in the end, of course. To find out how, you must read the book.

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Black Gate

On the day of Penny Jordan’s funeral I’d like to thank jay Dixon, author of The Romance Fiction of Mills & Boon 1909-1990s, for writing the following guest post about Penny Jordan’s writing career for Teach Me Tonight.

As a consequence of her love ofHeyer, she started her writing career as one of the Desmond Elliotstable of authors, writing Regencies as Caroline Courtney. The firstwas A Wager for Love, where the hero (who according to one reviewer is ‘a bit too stuffy’) abducts the heroine. Her second,Guardian of the Heart, has a more typical Jordan hero: coldand aloof and out for revenge.

An insatiablestoryteller, while writing Caroline Courtney Regencies she also wrotebetween 1981 and 1983, three air-hostess romps asMelinda Wright and two thrillers as Lydia Hitchcock, but her bigbreak came in 1981, when an editor at Mills & Boon picked upFalcon’s Preyfrom the slush pile. A sheik novel, it has a dictatorial hero, whobelieves the heroine is a gold-digger and treats her accordingly.This remained a typical hero for Jordan, but she was also able toreinvent her M&B novels so that, for instance, in her 50^thnovel for them, Loving, published in 1986, quite early on inthe novel the hero is ‘stripped of his masculine arrogance’ andthe heroine, who was raped as an eighteen-year-old, ‘blot[s] outhis masculinity’ in order to talk to him. This picture of a hero isa far cry from one whose ‘study was an openly sexual one, and notmerely sexual but contemptuous’ (Passionate Protection,1983, p.25), or who ‘wouldn’t allow her to have any views thatweren’t his’ (The Inward Storm, 1987, p.12), which areJordan’s more usual type of hero.

In 1994 Harlequin setup the MIRA imprint, and Jordan was among their first authors. Her first two novelsfor them were New York Times bestsellers, and her third,Hidden Years, was her personal biggest mainstream seller. Itstill has her trademark dictatorial male figure, but the emphasis ison the mother/daughter relationship of the two main characters.

However, after 10 yearsher sales started to fall, and her contract with them was eventuallycancelled. She started looking for another publisher, and so theAnnie Groves sagas were born, under the HarperCollins imprint. Theseare Second World War stories based on her own family’s memories. Adifferent style from her Mills & Boon novels, they are set inLiverpool and emphasise the home and family – for instance in theCampion series many of the important decisions are taken in theyellow-painted kitchen, which becomes a symbol throughout the novelsof family love and understanding.

Teach Me Tonight

- Visit Brandon Sanderson’s Website
- Buy Towers of Midnight from Amazon
- Watch the Towers of Midnight Trailer (SPOILERS)
- Free Towers of Midnight Chapters: Chapter 1 | Chapter 8
- Learn How and Why the Final Wheel of Time Book was Split Into Three

After more than 20 years, the Wheel of Time is drawing to a close. The Last Battle looms on the horizon, but as of the last page of 2009′s The Gathering Storm, there was still much to do. As impressed as I was with The Gathering Storm, I admit I closed the book and wondered how in the Light the late Robert Jordan’s successor, Brandon Sanderson, could suitably conclude all the dangling storylines in only two more books. Fortunately, Towers of Midnight, the penultimate book in the series, is further evidence that Robert Jordan’s opus was left in capable hands.

The Gathering Storm was occasionally riddled with exposition, a means of reminding readers where characters stood in their respective adventures since the release of the previous Wheel of Time book, Knife of Dreams, in 2005. Such reminders were necessary, seeing as four years separated Knife of Dreams and The Gathering Storm. Towers of Midnight, released only 13 months after The Gathering Storm, has no such recaps to wade through. Consequently, the pace Sanderson sets in Towers of Midnight is, by and large, appropriately quick and infused with adrenaline.

Aside from some slight slowdown approximately three-quarters through, there is always something happening. Battles are fought, relationships–romantic and otherwise–are explored, and perhaps most importantly, plot threads that began way back in the first four books come to a close, and beautifully. Towers of Midnight very much has a “full circle” kind of feel. As characters move toward resolving their personal plights, dozens of allusions to The Eye of the World, The Great Hunt, The Dragon Reborn, and The Shadow Rising are made, not only reminding readers of the origins of threads in Robert Jordan’s Pattern, but why the characters featured in Towers of Midnight have become so beloved by readers over the last two decades. As character thought back on events, I recalled those circumstances right along with them, which served up a warm dose of nostalgia that instilled the desire to reread the series yet again.

What characters am I referring to? The vast majority. Rand, Mat, Perrin, Thom, Egwene, Nynaeve, Lan, Gawyn, Galad, Faile, Birgitte, Min, Aviendha, Tuon, Cadsuane, Morgase, a few Forsaken, various Aes Sedai and Asha’man… Burn me, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find a Wheel of Time book with a more generous spread of characters–and that list only includes characters whose points-of-view are directly explored. Each character receives as much attention as is needed to move things forward, so don’t worry that the large volume of plots weaved throughout Towers of Midnight results in any one story or character getting shafted.

The advancements each character makes in Towers of Midnight is by far the most exciting element of the story. Rand, having conquered the darkness inside him, makes moves to right the many wrongs born of his self-imposed emotional numbness. Egwene may be the Amyrlin Seat, but the White Tower is still suffering a schism due to her predecessor’s mad machinations that pitted Ajah against Ajah, as well as fear over the encroaching Seanchan. Mat and Perrin, only occasionally mentioned in The Gathering Storm in order to move them into position like stones on a stones board, are given much larger roles in Towers of Midnight. Perrin makes strides to come to grips with leadership and his inner wolf, while Mat, who many fans felt was not quite himself in Brandon Sanderson’s hands, steals the show at several intervals with his trademark blend of wit, action, and the Dark One’s own bloody luck.

Although I enjoyed spending time with all of my favorite characters, there were two segments of Towers of Midnight that especially stood out. The first is an emotional reunion between two characters that has been a long time coming. The second comes when one character finally voices a question I’ve asked myself countless times since reading the first book: do Aes Sedai really serve the world, or do they only purport to serve others while serving themselves? As much as I like many Aes Sedai characters in the series, they have all too often come across as bullies, using magic to bend others to their will in order to see their own schemes bear fruit, the rest of the world be damned. The fact that these questions are (finally) voiced, and voiced by a significant character, will hopefully bring about a change in the way the women of the White Tower view themselves and others. Such a change likely won’t be seen by readers, given that only one book remains in the series. But I would be satisfied with Aes Sedai (especially their Amyrlin) resolving to analyze and adjust their attitudes as the characters continue to exist in their world long after readers have read the final page of the final book.

If Towers of Midnight has any failing, it is that some storylines are wrapped up quick as a blink, which may leave some readers with whiplash. This very problem also occurred infrequently in The Gathering Storm, such as when the wife of one character murdered one of the series’ main antagonists–one who had risen to power over the course of approximately nine books, only to die in little more than three pages. However, the sheer magnitude of plot that had to be resolved over the final three books in the series dictated that some stories would simply have to end more abruptly than others. In this writer’s opinion, Sanderson was prudent in determining which loose ends to tie up posthaste, and which to draw out to appropriate and satisfying lengths.

With its emphasis on character development, exciting pace, and large cast of characters, Towers of Midnight is the Wheel of Time book fans have been waiting for since The Shadow Rising. The amount of ground covered in a single novel is staggering, and if Towers of Midnight is any indication as to what awaits us in the forthcoming A Memory of Light, the end, while bittersweet, is sure to be incredible.

Fantasy Book Critic

It’s always hard to compare the last books in a series to the earlier ones, mostly because it’s in the last ones that all the climatic battles will take place and all the storylines will come to an end. You cannot have a third act without an act one and two, yet the third act will in almost every case be seen as ‘the best part’. That is very much how I feel about The Wheel of Time right now. It has dragged out for eleven books, and when Brandon Sanderson now takes over after the unfortunate death of Robert Jordan he has the honor of wrapping up all the story lines, kill all the characters, and write out all the battles. Question is: is he up for the task?

The tone of the novel is set right from the start in the prologue, with a loaming black storm and a sense that the battle is upon the world. I knew since the last DragonCon that part of the prologue was done by Robert Jordan himself, but where Jordan stopped and Brandon Sanderson begun I couldn’t tell at first. I did notice his style later during the reading, and Sanderson is definitely less free with his descriptions, instead preferring a tighter writing that still paints pictures satisfactory. Several times during the reading I entirely forgot that I was reading a different author than Jordan, only to be reminded later by noticing how “fast” things seemed to be moving.

Moving plots constantly forward has sadly been one of Jordan’s lacking feats, but something that Sanderson apparently has no trouble with. The book slows down a bit in the middle, but it is barely noticeable and no way near as painful as in some of the later books of the series. Yes, Winter’s Heart, I’m looking at you.

With only a few chapters about Mat, and Perrin only with a few pages, the entire book is more or less only about Rand and Egwene. Elayne and the Black Tower are completely absent, which is somewhat annoying, especially considering the ending of Knife of Dreams. One of the bigger faults of the Wheel of Time series is that it tries to do too much with too many people. If you let every character – and there is a lot of them – have their share of pages not much will happen, and if you only focus on a few you will miss the others.

While The Gathering Storm only focuses on two storylines it manages to do so wonderfully well. Rand struggle with his madness as he gathers his forces for the Last Battle and desperately tries to force the rest of the world under his banner. As people around him continue to worry about the Dragon Reborn’s sanity, he himself turns even more inwards as he tries to find a way to actually defeat the Dark One. Meanwhile, Egwene does all she can to reunite the shattered White Tower without breaking it completely, but even from within it’s no easy task.

Unlike the other books in the series, you can actually feel the Last Battle loaming over the world, instead of it being something everyone just talks about. The book is definitely a lot darker than others in the series, and I only expect it to get darker from here. It will be a scene with Rand in the middle of the book that will shock you deeply. You will get the impression – very strongly – that the Dark One is not just sitting and waiting, and that he is deviously cunning.

Since I hadn’t read anything of Sanderson’s work previously I was a bit concerned that characters would feel unfamiliar, but I felt that he nailed almost every one of them perfectly. The “almost” is there because of Mat, who I felt wasn’t entirely familiar. He was more humorous – up to the point where I actually laughed out loud on several occasions – but while he had previously been more of a sardonic rogue he was almost too much here. I didn’t dislike him – I actually liked him very much – but I didn’t recognize him as the Mat from previous books.

Sanderson does a wonderful job on all the other characters, and even does a fairly good job on most of the women. I didn’t notice any who complained about the sweetness of their tea, Aes Sedai didn’t think so much of themselves (they still do, only a bit less), Nynaeve kept her braid-pulling to a minimum, and Egwene didn’t want to box someone’s ears all the time. He even managed to make Cadsuane into a slightly more understandable character, and that is no small feat.

Although the Forsaken are having appearances and clashes with Rand, they are not providing the usual action-filled climatic endings like in previous books of the series. Instead (I don’t think I spoil anything here) there is a very powerful and emotional scene with Rand, standing at the top of Dragonmount, where he begins to doubt the very cause he is committed to, the futility, and why he fights. It is very possibly the best scene in the series, and a perfect ending that sets the tone for the remaining two books.

So to conclude, The Gathering Storm might have a new writer, but the series remains true to its vision and there is not a single time I felt that Jordan would have done differently. It is extremely well written, and it’s nice to see storylines that has kept going throughout the series come to conclusions in most satisfying ways. The Gathering Storm is without a doubt the best book in the series so far, and it strongly shows that Sanderson is committed, and perfect, for the job of finishing the most epic fantasy series of them all.

Quilldragon