The Autumn Castle
Kim Wilkins
Aspect, Mar 2005, $6.95, 435 pages, ISBN: 044661663X
reviewed by Harriet Klausner

Christine Starlight has never gotten over the deaths of her pop icon parents who were killed in an accident by an underage driver. She lives in Berlin with her lover, the artist Jude, who just won a fellowship from billionaire sculpture Immanuel Zweigler to perfect his work. His host also hunts down fairies, captures them, and drops them in an acid vat to use their bones in his current sculpture The Bone Wife which moves thanks to fairy magic which resides inn their bones after death.

Christine reunites with her childhood friend Mayfridth, who was abducted by fairies, converted into one of them, and now is the Queen of the magical realm of the German fairies Ewigkreis. Mayfridth has returned to the mundane world to visit Christine, who recently had accidentally journeyed into the fairy realm. Christine realizes May has fallen in love with Jude, but also knows the queen must return to her home because her people need her. Immanuel wants her royal skeleton and is waiting for the right time to kill her. Immanuel enters Ewigkreis to murder the fairies; Christine must stop this serial killer who now has kidnapped Mayfridth.

Kim Wilkins has created a magical realm populated by wonderful beings that seem real as if the author has visited the land of fairy. Readers will cherish Christine, a kind, loyal, and caring soul, who deserves the best, not what she has gotten. The Queen’s advisor plays a critical but secondary role and his shapeshifting skills t enable him to turn into a fox, crow, or bear and that also seems genuine and adds to the feel that this fantasy tale actually happened. Readers will be swept into THE AUTUMN CASTLE by this beautiful adult fairy tale.