Solstice Wood

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award 2007.

No stranger to the realms of myth and magic, World Fantasy Award winning author Patricia A. McKillip now makes a foray into the modern world. Solstice Wood is a tale of the tangled lives we mere mortals lead, when we turn our eyes from the beauty and mystery that lie just outside of the everyday...

When bookstore owner Sylvia Lynn hears her grandmother's voice on the phone, she knows she must finally return to her childhood home in upstate New York. Her beloved grandfather has died, and though she has put a country between her and the past, the time has come for Sylvia to face the grandmother who raised her and the woods which so beguiled – and frightened – her...

Though Lynn Hall is nearly ramshackle, Sylvia's grandmother is just as spry as ever. There is no escaping her scrutiny – and Sylvia has something to hide. But it's not until she meets the Fiber Guild – a group of local women who meet to knit, embroider, and sew – that Sylvia learns why her grandmother watches her. A primitive power exists in the forest, a force the Fiber Guild seeks to bind in its stitches and weavings. And Sylvia is no stranger to the woods.