A dark, haunting fantasy. I originally picked this up because of the cover art, and then because I was intrigued by the idea of a story inspired by the Christmas carol "Good King Wencelas."

Duke Rudyard Wencelas still grieves for his wife decades after her death, and ventures into the mysterious wood to the East of his great halls. The wood is rumored to be endless, and in it, he hopes to find his dead wife...But the dead have their own plans, and they are hungry for the life of the living. When the duke returns from his journey, he brings with him a young woman who will send his own children fleeing, in their turn, through the wood, to find the strange mirror world that lies on the other side.

The reader, too, is drawn into this dreamlike world of winter darkness where the characters are relentlessly relive the fates of those who have come before, where every person has his double and an attempt to travel beyond the boundaries of the known only brings one back to his origins.

At the heart of this story is the haunting fairy tale of the maiden whose brothers are turned into ravens. Hazel captures the essential atmosphere of the tale, the lingering dark fears of the shadow that past griefs may cast over a family, the threats a new wife may encounter. It is filled with wonderful details, some drawn from folklore, many given his own original touch, all left for the reader to discover. He does not offer explanations, however: The story remains mysterious even at the end, it retains a pleasantly impenetrable quality which invites us to return to the book again and again and wonder over it, as with the best fairy tales.