Widdershins

by Charles de Lint

Tor, 2006, ISBN 0-765-31285-9

A book review by Elisabeth Carey

For anyone who's been reading de Lint's Newford stories—this is Jilly and Geordie's story. They've been the best of friends, closer than friends, since their college days, and pretty much continuously, one of them has always been involved with someone else—not that that's ever worked out for either of them in the long run. But even they couldn't keep that up forever.

The story within which they finally get appropriately whacked with two-by-fours concerns the efforts of one of the old native spirits, one who really knows how to carry a grudge, to engineer a war between the spirits and the immigrant fairies who migrated to this continent with the Europeans. Joe, Galfreya, the Crow Girls, Christiana, Whiskey Jack, Raven, and other familiar figures from past tales all get involved, frequently with some confusion as to who is supposed to be on whose side. (This confusion is aided by the fact that the grudge-holding spirit's major grudge isn't against the fairies.) It's a solid, enjoyable story, but maybe not the best place to start if you haven't read any of the Newford stories before.

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