Reviews

Rambles: Cerin first saw the Maid of the Grey Rose in the marketplace of Wran Cheaping, the town near where he lives with his foster mother Tess Kelledy. Cerin encounters her again in the woods and that chance meeting leads to a summer friendship that deepened into love. But the Maid has enemies and they soon come to claim her. For the love he bears her, Cerin vows to travel to the dread city of Banlore and rescue the Maid from Yarac Stone-slayer, the dark being who is her betrothed. On his journey, he meets the loremaster Hickathrift Trummel who travels with him But Banlore is not the end of Cerin's journey; it is only the beginning, for Yarac is only the first of the dark beings known as the Daketh to come into the world. There is another, and she is far more dangerous. And it is up to Cerin and the Maid of the Grey Rose to defeat her. Charles de Lint is best known for his novels of urban fantasy, or what has come to be called mythic fiction. Only a few of his novels are set in the high fantasy style as this one is. The Harp of the Grey Rose was plainly written when de Lint was yet a young writer. It has several standard high fantasy elements, including the young fool who becomes a hero, the damsel in distress, the stone-working dwarf and the quest to defeat the great evil creature. From Mythprint, The Monthly Bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society, March 1986: In fact, the dialogue alone is worth the price of admission. The characters are lively as well as life-like. Charles de Lint seems to have the one thing an author must have if anything is to happen between the reader and the book: he cares about his characters, and that enables the reader to do the same. From Amazing Stories, May 1996: Like so many modern fantasies, this one was inspired by Tolkien, but unlike a lot of its relatives, it has a plot and style of its own. The characters are extremely well-drawn…and de Lint catches the appropriate poetic mood for the story. From The Ottawa Citizen, February 1991: De Lint entices the reader into his world of fantastic creatures, leading through adventures of Cerin and his companions, winding through a tapestry of wonder and deception. If there is a fault to The Harp of the Grey Rose, it is a happy one. The book is too short. Still it is better to leave readers hungry for more than to have them unable to drag themselves to the back cover.