Newford — (1990-2009) Each of these novels can stand alone, but they all take place in a fictional contemporary city (Newford) and have recurring characters. The Dreaming Place, The Blue Girl, Little (Grrl) Lost, and Dingo are young adult novels. From a Whisper to a Scream and I'll Be Watching You are horrors which were originally written under the penname Samuel M. Key.
Dreams Underfoot, The Ivory and the Horn, Moonlight and Vines, Tapping the Dream Tree, The Hour Before Dawn, and Muse and Reverie are story collections. Old Man Crow is a chapbook. We are presenting the books in the reading order which Mr. de Lint suggests.
Publisher: Welcome to Newford... Welcome to the music clubs, the waterfront, the alleyways where ancient myths and magic spill into the modern world. Come meet Jilly, painting wonders in the rough city streets; and Geordie, playing fiddle while he dreams of a ghost; and the Angel of Grasso Street gathering the fey and the wild and the poor and the lost. Gemmins live in abandoned cars and skells traverse the tunnels below, while mermaids swim in the grey harbor waters and fill the cold night with their song.
   
  
   
 
 
   
Some are Available for download at Audible.com
 Memory and Dream
“In the world of fairy tales, what was strange was also invariably trustworthy. One quickly learned to depend upon the old beggar woman, the hungry bird, the grateful fox.”
I didn’t realize how much I’d missed Charles de Lint’s urban fantasies until I borrowed Memory and Dream from a friend on a whim. I haven’t been reading much of his stuff for the past couple of years, and I’m not even sure why.
I do know that the landscape of urban fantasy has changed. Memory and Dream, published in 1994, is vastly different from the novels that are in vogue now. In de Lint’s work, and in the work of other writers publishing in the subgenre at the time, the Otherworld is both a metaphor for being out of place in mainstream society and a place where the wounds that set one apart can be healed. The protagonists are often those on the fringes of society: struggling artists, abuse victims, and the denizens of the street.
Memory and Dream centers around an artist who has given up the style of painting that she once loved. There’s a haunting, metaphysical reason; her work had the power to shape reality, and this gift led to tragedy in her past. The artist, Isabelle, is only persuaded to paint again in the old style as a last favor to a long-dead friend. The novel alternates between a “present” timeline and a “past” timeline. The “past” chapters slowly unfold the events, both happy and sad, that have led Isabelle to her current situation; the “present” chapters show the reawakening of her power and its consequences. De Lint does a great job of building tension in both timelines at once.
There’s not much more I can say without spoiling the plot, but I will say that I couldn’t put it down, and that it’s a moving story about art, love, friendship, forgiveness, abuse in its many forms, and what it means for a being to be truly “real.” It’s not completely without flaws — there’s a small error or two, and a subplot that seems too easily wrapped up — but Memory and Dream passes the most important test that determines whether I give a book five stars. Namely, I couldn’t get anything productive done while I was reading it!
I think I should probably add the warning that Memory and Dream contains themes of sexual abuse and suicide, which might be upsetting to some readers. —Kelly Lasiter
 Someplace to be Flying
Someplace to be Flying is the story of a gypsy cab driver and a freelance photographer who meet each other during a chance encounter with the “Animal People” in a dark alley in the familiar setting of Newford. This glimpse into a magical other world leaves them reeling, and as they seek out an explanation for the impossible, they are drawn deeper into the world of the Animal People, and the ongoing war between Raven and Coyote.
Someplace to be Flying starts out with a bang, but then slows down to introduce a large and varied cast of supporting characters and some mythology and backstory. Once the action starts up, though, it is almost impossible to put the book down. It draws you along as you get absorbed into Charles de Lint's vivid, detailed descriptions of his world.
While Charles de Lint normally focuses on the smaller magics and hidden mysteries that surround us on a daily basis, Someplace to be Flying has a much larger focus. The final battle is over an object of such incredible power that it has the ability to destroy the entire world. This enlarged scope adds to the power of the story, and is as close to epic fantasy as de Lint gets.
De Lint’s story telling capabilities shine in Someplace to be Flying and this book deserves an extra star for the creation of the Crow Girls, two of the most memorable, quixotic, original characters I’ve ever read. They add a fascinating touch of dark whimsy to the story. De Lint treats the Native American mythology with respect, while still creating a compelling urban fantasy novel. I highly recommend Someplace to be Flying to all readers. —Ruth Arnell
 Moonlight and Vines
Moonlight and Vines is a well-written collection of stories, set in a modern city, intended to give the reader a sense of wonder, and make us believe that there is magic afoot, even in our most run-down urban slums.
Charles de Lint is wonderful at treading that line between fantasy and realism, where we wonder right along with the characters, "what is real?" That is his biggest talent; his biggest flaw is trying too hard to insert a moral into each of these stories. They all seem to be making a point. Sometimes this is annoying; sometimes the story is so good that I don't mind at all. The moralizing tends to place an artificial distance between the reader and the story.
My favorite story in the anthology is "Birds." It deals with two young women's search for peace of mind, and the rituals they use to find it. De Lint has captured the very essence of magic and of personal ritual. In pagan literature I've read so many formulaic lists of "spell ingredients" I could puke; de Lint's description of the women's search for certain objects of personal value is right on the money.
—Kelly Lasiter
Medicine Road
Some fantasists develop gritty, realistic alternate worlds that draw in the reader. Some swoop us away on flights of gorgeous prose. Some create detailed and intricate magical systems to delight the puzzle-lover and game-player in us. And some, like Charles de Lint, create with character, tone and authorial voice an experience that invites us into the story-telling circle, suggesting we pull up a chair next to the fire, grab a schooner of ale, and settle back to hear the story.
Medicine Road is one of de Lint’s most inviting adventures. Set in Arizona, the book follows what happens when desert magic meets the magic of the British Isles. Alice Corn Hair and Jim Changing Dog are under what some might call a curse, put on them by Coyote Woman. A century ago, Coyote Woman saw a red dog chasing a jackalope, and she turned them both into humans. For one hundred years, they had the ability to shift between their magical forms and human shape. If at the end of that time, each of them had not found true love, both will revert to their magical shapes. For Alice, who has found her true love, an artist named Thomas, this will be a tragedy. Jim, who has not been so lucky, has grown to enjoy being human, though, and wants to stop the curse too.
The two of them have less than a month left of their hundred years when their lives intersect with Laurel and Bess Dillard, twin folk musicians who are on a house concert tour. The Dillard girls have had a previous run-in with magic, and their differing reactions to it drive the plot. Bess is left wary, even frightened, while Laurel is intrigued. The girls don’t realize what Coyote Woman immediately senses, that they are magical themselves.
As if things weren’t complicated enough, Coyote Woman has a vengeful rattlesnake woman dogging her heels. Ramona, the snake-woman, intends for the curse to happen, to show Coyote Woman what happens when she meddles in the lives of others.
There are a great many magical beings in this book. This is one of the things I have always loved about de Lint. Two decades before this type of story got the name “urban fantasy” and was colonized by size-four badass chicks in leather, he was writing plausibly about beings with magic who coexist with humans, filling out and expanding centuries of folk tales. De Lint understands the magic of poetry, of music, of painting, of cooking, of telling stories and creating a warm safe place out of the night. In Medicine Road, the magical beings guzzle water from water bottles, enjoy the sun and gossip about each other, just like we do. They have fears and feuds, and sometimes make bad choices.
The curse, it turns out, is not the biggest danger in the book, and the danger that is revealed is directed at Laurel and Bess. Before that happens, we go on a loving tour of the Arizona desert, experience a house concert, and get to know two twins, who may have identical DNA but are two completely different people.
I felt that one story here got shortchanged, and that was the tale of Alice and Thomas’s love. Because they are a settled couple, we take it for granted that they love one another and not enough time is spent with them. I also felt a tiny bit cheated by the resolution of Coyote Woman’s curse, although the sudden pivot to Bess and Laurel was nice. As with any de Lint book, I loved his use of music. He is a musician himself, and his own love of it comes through in this book.
The Tachyon Press edition of Medicine Road is illustrated by Charles Vess, adding another dimension to the story. Several of the illustrations have a stylized, iconic look to them that complement the southwestern flavor of the tale.
This short novel, under two hundred pages, is sweet and enjoyable, filled with characters we like and understand. Pull up a chair, grab a beverage and join the story-telling circle. —Marion Deeds
 The Blue Girl
What drew me to The Blue Girl wasn't the bad girl trying to be a good girl premise. It wasn't the thing about the resident student ghost or the gang of malicious fairies or being a social misfit. Been there, seen that — not just in books. It was the line about Imogene's imaginary friend manifesting into reality that piqued my interest. Now that was something I couldn't really recall seeing before. It tickled that whimsical part of me that my mom is so fond of talking about (and envying).
And there were some things about The Blue Girl that I liked, that I found fascinating. It's one of those books where it's a bit difficult to put into words exactly what it was I enjoyed; it's more a feeling than actual things that I can point out and explain.
But the problem I had with The Blue Girl is something I can point out and explain. It's what's sometimes referred to as floating head dialog — meaning an extreme lack of dialog tags. I won't get into the debate over whether this is good writing or bad or any of that, because that's not the point. The reasons it's a problem for me are, well, two of them are simple and one isn't.
For starters, words for me have a sort of visual onomatopoeia — that is, instead of sounding how they mean, they look how they mean. It doesn't take a lot of words to create a vivid image in my head, but if the words aren't there I won't necessarily get an image. The second problem with this type of dialog is if it goes on too long, I start losing track of who's speaking. Then I have to pull myself out of the story and go back to figure it out. But the third problem is more complex. I've never tried explaining this before — in fact it's only something I've just recently realized — so bear with me.
When I was 9 I was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome. AS is a high-functioning form of autism and, to keep this from getting overlong, I'll simplify: the main issue AS causes is an inability or low ability to both understand and communicate tone of voice, facial expression, and body language. So what I've learned over the years is that when we talk to one another, we speak in four languages, not one. Each of these things — tone of voice, facial expression, body language — is its own language and just as important as the words that we say. More so, even. For me, the lack of dialog tags is like speaking to someone who doesn't put out a lot of those signals — there's nothing there for me to read and since I already struggle to, I get little to nothing at all. It saps all the emotion from a book, makes the tone of it dull and monotone. (And while I doubt that all AS people have this problem, I also doubt that not all non-AS people don't have it.)
For about half the book, The Blue Girl was interesting enough that I was dealing with this. There were some sort of stop-again-start-again places along the way, but nothing the story couldn't distract me from. And then, well... every single character in the story that encounters the strange and paranormal goings on is fazed by them for no more than an hour, tops. More often than not the characters already know all about it and aren't the least bit surprised. And this...this I just don't believe. If my imaginary friend sat down at the dinner table you can bet that my family would do more than shrug it off — and my imaginary friends were generally at least human. I just don't believe any of it. My credulity no longer stretched far enough to really get absorbed into the tale. It started to feel overlong, like it would never end. And that's unfortunate, because I was really enjoying it.
It's not really a matter of good or bad, exactly. It simply didn't work for me. —Beth Johnson
 Promises to Keep
Promises to Keep is the story of the early Jilly Coppercorn, how she meets so many of the other central characters from the Newford stories, and the adventure that results when she unexpectedly bumps into Donna, a friend from her past who she had met while in the Home for Wayward Girls. Jilly used to be a victim of abuse, a junkie, and a hooker, but she’s changed her life, is clean, and is attending college and working. What change will this friend from her damaged past bring with her?
Promises to Keep is really a prequel to the Newford stories. While it does not necessarily assume a familiarity with the other stories set in this fictional city, the reader would benefit from having read at least some of the other books.
Charles de Lint always writes beautifully descriptive prose. When he’s at his best, you actually feel like you are in the world he has created and described. I loved the familiar characters in Promises to Keep, too.
But, while I enjoyed this book, I had a few issues with it. First, the ending feels disconnected from the rest of the story. Throughout the story, Jilly emphasizes the need to earn what you get, to learn from your mistakes, and to take personal responsibility for your actions, but the ending is completely disparate, with an almost deus ex machina resolution to the conflict.
Second, the book felt a little stale because Donna reminded me a lot of Grace from Mysteries of Grace, and this familiarity was underscored by the similarity of locations in the two stories. Promises to Keep was written first, but I read Mysteries of Grace recently, so I felt like I was revisiting old ground.
My final problem was the repetitive nature of Jilly’s personal mantra of how the world should work. I wanted to say, “Okay, I got the point already!” De Lint needs to stop telling me how the world should work, and show me why it should work that way.
It was difficult to give a star rating to Promises to Keep because, even though it had some problems, I so much I enjoyed reading about how Jilly meets Sophie and Wendy and Geordie and… Well, you get the point. I’ve read all the other Newford stories, and loved most of them, so I have a previous attachment to these characters. I appreciated reading about all of the episodes that are briefly mentioned in other books. So, I’m giving Promises to Keep 4 stars for the de Lint completionist, and 3 1/2 stars for everyone else. —Ruth Arnell
 Dingo
Dingo is a YA novel that tells the story of a young woman who has the ability to turn into a dingo because she is a descendant of the original animal people from the beginning of the world. Her breeding causes problems for her and her family when other animal people need her for a mysterious ritual. Fleeing Australia to Canada to find safety, Lainey meets Miguel and together they hatch a plan to win her freedom.
Charles de Lint is recycling previous material for this book. He has written multiple tales of a normal human who meets a mythic being, gets sucked into a dreamworld, and then has to work his or her way back home, and the repeat of this plotline left Dingo feeling stale and uninspired. There was nothing new or innovative in the way he handled this story, and even more disturbing was the way that the Australian mythology felt grafted on to the Native American mythology which he explored in previous novels. Likewise, the characters felt like old retreads.
In addition, the dialogue seemed flat and unrealistic. This is not how I talked as a teenager, or how the teenagers I teach talk. De Lint seemed to be using the teens in the story to make a personal argument about multiple topics, including evolution, the need to be true to one’s self, and even the best bands in Australia, with a preachiness that bordered on an After School Special.
Finally, the ending was formulaic, and lacked any sense of magic or fantasy. To me, Dingo just felt like de Lint was phoning it in. First time readers of de Lint will be turned off by the uninspired writing, and long time fans will be disappointed by the lack of originality.
Charles de Lint is credited on the dust cover of this book as pioneering the modern field of urban fantasy, but Dingo leaves me sadly wondering if he has run out of ideas for new stories. All of the touchstones of a de Lint novel are there, but the magic is gone, and I was highly disappointed. Dingo was written as one long chapter, with simple double paragraph breaks between sections, and the lack of a chapter break as a mental stopping place is probably the only thing that kept me reading to the end. It wasn’t that the novel was overtly bad. There is just nothing here to make me recommend it to another reader. —Ruth Arnell
 Muse and Reverie
Muse and Reverie is a brand new collection of short stories set in Charles de Lint’s fictional city of Newford. Now available in one volume, these stories have been published in other venues over the last decade. While there are some good stories, and only one real clunker, Muse and Reverie lacks the same magic that has characterized de Lint’s earlier collections.
I may have been at a disadvantage, because I have read several of these stories in other editions over the last year, so the bloom has faded from the rose, so to speak. Yet the characters that stood out to me in this volume were the old friends that I have read before: the irrepressible Crow Girls, Jilly and Goon, the mystical Meran, even the elf-like gemmin with their violet eyes. The new characters seem to lack the same spark of life as the old familiar favorites, and in the case of the story that has Hellboy running around Newford, are downright off-putting.
Normally when I read de Lint, I am swept away into an experience that makes me believe in the impossible, and encourages one to look at the world sideways, so as to see the magic that is hovering on the periphery. At the end of this volume, rather than feeling enchanted, I felt scolded, like an errant teenager who had been called on the carpet by a frustrated parent, and lectured about the need to make good choices and create something from her life. Indeed, many of the stories take on a moralistic tone that leaves one feeling preached at, rather than entertained.
This critique is more negative in tone than is congruent with my feelings after reading the collection, but as an ardent de Lint fan who actually buys the limited edition chapbooks and keeps them slipcovered on her bookshelf so they won’t be damaged by dust or sunlight, I wanted more than this book delivered. I would recommend Muse and Reverie to de Lint fans who want to keep up with the latest chapters in the Newford saga, but would not recommend it as representative of de Lint’s work as a whole. —Ruth Arnell
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Stand-alone novels and story collections:
The Riddle of the Wren — (1984) Publisher: Minda Sealy is afraid of her own nightmares. Then, one night, while asleep, she meets Jan, the Lord of the Moors, who has been imprisoned by Ildran the Dream-master-the same being who traps Minda. In exchange for her promise to free him, Jan gives Minda three tokens. She sets out, leaving the safety of her old life to begin a journey from world to world, both to save Jan and to solve "the riddle of the Wren"-which is the riddle of her very self. The Riddle of the Wren was Charles de Lint's first novel.
 Mulengro — (1985) Publisher: A series of bizarre murders are baffling the police, each death somehow connected with the city's elusive gypsy community. The police are searching for a human killer, but the romanies know better. They have a name for the darkness that hunts them down, one by one - "Mulengro".
 
The Harp of the Grey Rose — (1985) Publisher: He is the Songweaver, but before he was a master of song he was merely Cerin of Wran Cheaping-a seventeen-year-old orphan raised by a wildland witch. Then he encountered the Maid of the Grey Rose-the lone survivor of the war that devastated the Trembling Lands and the promised bride of Yarac Stone-Slayer, the feared and terrible Waster. The mysterious beauty captured Cerin's heart, drawing him into a world both dark and deadly, until, armed with only a tinkerblade and the magic of song, he would take on a man's challenge... and choose a treacherous path toward a magnificent destiny. The Harp of the Grey Rose is award-winning fantasist Charles de Lint's first novel.
 Yarrow — (1986) Publisher: Cat lived in a land of dreams, crossing over the borders of sleep into a magic realm where gnomes lived among standing stones and selchies beneath the waves, where antlered Mynfel walked by moonlight; and the harper Kothlen told stories of the ancient days.. When she woke from her travels she told her own stories about the Otherworld. Her publisher called her novels 'fantasy', but Mynfel's domain seemed more real than the streets of Ottawa. until a thief came out of the night and stole away all her dreams.
 Greenmantle — (1988) Publisher: Not far from the city there is an ancient wood, forgotten by the modern world, where Mystery walks in the moonlight. He wears the shape of a stag, or a goat, or a horned man wearing a cloak of leaves. He is summoned by the music of the pipes or a fire of bones on Midsummer's Evening. He is chased by the hunt and shadowed by the wild girl.
 Wolf Moon — (1988) Charles de Lint: His name when he was human was Kern. Now he is the most feared of beings: a werewolf. When the change first came upon him, his parents drove him away with silver daggers. Later, he sought human companionship, but he could not hide the truth for long. And so he kept running until he ran headlong into the deadliest pursuer of all — a harper bent on stealing his life away. By chance Kern was able to find refuge at the Inn of the Yellow Tinker, and the woman he was destined to love. But can he risk both human and harper vengeance to keep her?
 Svaha — (1989) Publisher: Out beyond the Enclaves, in the desolation between the cities, an Indian flyer has been downed. A chip encoded with vital secrets is missing. Only Gahzee can venture forth to find it — walking the line between the Dreamtime and the Realtime, bringing his people's ancient magic to bear on the poisoned world of tomorrow. Bringing hope, perhaps, for a new dawn.
 Angel of Darkness — (1990) Publisher: In the early 1990s, Charles de Lint wrote and published three dark fantasies under the name "Samuel M. Key." Now, beginning with Angel of Darkness, Orb presents them for the first time under de Lint's own name.
When ex-cop Jack Keller finds the mutilated body of a runaway girl in the ashes of a bizarre house fire, he opens the door to a nightmare. For a sadistic experiment in terror has unleashed a dark avenging angel forged from the agonies of countless dying victims...
Jack of Kinrowan — (1990-1995) Publisher: Jack of Kinrowan. An acknowledged classic of contemporary fantasy, Jack of Kinrowan brings together in one volume Charles de Lint's rollicking saga of wild faerie magic on the streets of the city. Jack, the Giant Killer — A faceless gang of bikers on Wild Hunt through the streets of present-day Ottawa hurtles young Jacky Rowan across the threshold into the perilous land of Faerie. There, to her dismay, she is hailed as the Jack of Kinrowan, a once-and-future trickster hero whose lot is to save the Elven Courts from unimaginable evil. Drink Down the Moon — Once the realm of Faerie drew its power from the Moon  herself. But now a ghastly creature has stolen that power and enslaved the Fair Folk — and Jacky Rowan herself. Only Johnny Faw, a hadsome fiddler unaware of his magical gifts, has the power to set them free.
 Jack of Kinrowan
Jack of Kinrowan is actually two books — Jack the Giant Killer and Drink Down the Moon — in an omnibus edition.
Jack the Giant Killer served as de Lint’s volume in the excellent Datlow and Windling edited series of modern retellings of classic fairy tales, as it retells the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, this time with Jack being a Jacky.
Set in Ottawa, Jack follows the adventures of Jacky Rowan, a young woman in her late teens who is stumbling through her own life and manages to fall into the faerie realm which inhabits the sidestreets of our world. On a self-destructive drinking binge, she ends up in a park and witnesses the Wild Hunt — one of the faerie world’s darker aspects — and intervenes without fully understanding what is going on.
Determined to not let the magic that has found her and now hunts her harm those she loves, Jacky sets off to save herself and ends up rescuing the Elven Courts of Canada in the process.
De Lint has a magical knack for being able to make the mythical world and the mundane live cheek-to-jowl in an entirely believable manner. He is a master of characterization, and is one of the few male authors I have found who writes female characters I recognize. His world is richly drawn, and he writes with a very sensual prose. Musical and literary references abound in his writing. In some of his later works this becomes almost overdone (to the point where you just wish he would put his iPod play list in as an addendum instead of trying to work in a reference to every artist he currently likes), but here he manages it with restraint, managing to flesh out a world on the page that invokes all of the senses.
Jack of Kinrowan will draw you in. It’s fast paced without being rushed, and pulls you deeper and deeper into the story. It’s character-driven storytelling, without sacrificing plot or scenery. De Lint spends as much time on the faerie creatures as on the human, avoiding stereotypical depictions of the fae, but instead making them as fully fleshed out as any of the other characters in the book.
But Jack of Kinrowan is not perfect. The story in Jack the Giant Killer is stronger than in Drink Down the Moon. Moon focuses on the same story world, but in this part of the novel Jacky has been rendered powerless and it is now up to a newcomer, Johnny Faw, a fiddler with no awareness of his magical gifts, to save the Fair Folk. The story isn’t as involving, and while still as beautifully written, doesn’t engage the reader with quite the same intensity as does Jack the Giant Killer. Jacky, and her best friend Kate Crackernuts, who are the emotional core of the first novel, are rendered as side characters in the second, and Drink Down the Moon never manages to ignite the same vivid story world that Jack the Giant Killer does.
If rated separately, Jack the Giant Killer would get five stars, and Drink Down the Moon would get only three. —Ruth Arnell
The Little Country — (1991) Publisher: Captivated by the unpublished manuscript she has found in her grandfather's cottage, folk musician Janey Little is transported to the world described in the manuscript and into a tale of a bewitched young woman's magical quest.
Into the Green — (1993) Publisher: The harp was a gift from Jacky Lanterns fey kin, as was the music Angharad pulled from its strings. She used it in her journeys through the Kingdoms of the Green Isles, to wake the magic of the Summerblood where it lay sleeping in folk who had never known they had it. Harping,  she knew, was one third of a bards spells. Harping, and poetry, and the road that led into the Green.
 Into the Green
What a strange little book. That was the first thought that crossed my head after I closed Into the Green. It concerns the adventures of Angharad, a tinker-woman who is also 'Summerborn', which means that she has a mystical gift that connects her with the realm of Faerie, better known in this world as 'the Green'. Traveling the three islands that make up her Celtic-flavoured world, Angharad's mission in life is to awaken other potential Summerborns to their dormant gift and prevent the magic of the Green from leaking out of the world through her singing, storytelling and harping.
In the first surprise of the book, the heroine does not marry at the finale of the story but at its beginning — and just as abruptly her husband Garrow is taken from her by the plague. With her husband, family and community dead she is forced into a new calling as a solitary wanderer. For the first few chapters of the book, it seemed that De Lint was mapping a rather unusual plot: each chapter is a self-enclosed adventure of Angharad as she searches for fellow Summerborns, a format you would expect from a episodic television series. For example, in one chapter Angharad meets a tree wizard and helps out his misguided apprentice, in another she finds herself in a dangerous situation with some witch-hunters, one of whom is a Summerborn himself. Each crisis is wrapped up by the end of the chapter, and has no further bearing on the rest of the story.
But just as I began to settle in and enjoy this unique volume of mini-adventures (told in beautiful prose with a wonderful melding of Celtic myth and original ideas), De Lint throws in an actual story, with cross-chapter references and character building. Unfortunately this story wasn't quite as interesting as it should have been, and I had already found De Lint's previous path (of telling one story of Angharad's life per chapter) quite appealing. Now we're dealing with a mysterious puzzle-box is uncovered after thousands of years, one that poses a threat to the Summerborn and the Green. Angharad is charged with the task of finding and destroying it.
From here, about a dozen new characters are introduced (none of whom are as interesting as those found in the first half of the book) who are rather difficult to keep track of. The quality of the puzzle-box story can be summed up in the fact that I remember Angharad's solo adventures at the beginning of the book very well, but have no idea as to how she managed to eventually destroy the power of the puzzle box.
As I said, it's an odd little book. Many will share my sentiment that the idea of a series of short-stories concerning Angharad's life was a unique and interesting conceit; others will be impatient for the longer story-arc of the book that involves the sinister puzzle box. I certainly don't regret reading Into the Green as it has some neat little ideas concerning the life and qualities of the tinker-folk, and Charles De Lint's language is beautiful, but still... it's odd! —Rebecca Fisher
 The Wild Wood — (1994) Publisher: A young artist returns to her cabin in the deep woods of Canada to concentrate on her illustrations. But somehow, strange and beautiful creatures are slipping into her drawings and sketches. The world of Faerie is reaching out to her for help — and she may be its last chance for survival.
 Triskell Tales — (2000) A collection of stories. Charles de Lint: Every year at Christmas time I write a short story for MaryAnn that I publish in chapbook form through my Triskell Press imprint. I've been doing this for twenty-two years now; the earliest stories were printed in editions of only one copy. It wasn't long before we decided to share the chapbooks as a Christmas gift for friends and family. In recent years, the stories have been reprinted in magazines, convention program books and my own short story collections — but their first breath of life has always been in chapbook form. Along the way, I've had a few small press publishers offer to do a limited edition collection of these stories, but the time never felt right until now. MaryAnn and I thought that it would be fun to celebrate the millennium with a hardcover edition of all the chapbook stories to date... Many of the earlier stories have never been reprinted. Some of the chapbooks also contained poetry that has seen very limited publication or none whatsoever. (One chapbook, about our first magical visit to the Tuscon area, was all poetry with a couple of transcribed fiddle tunes that I wrote.) We're also including a few other items, such as a pair of short stories commissioned by our local community newspaper, one of which was a collaboration with MaryAnn. And to top it off, MaryAnn has agreed to provide a full-colour painting for the cover, along with several b&w interior illustrations.
 Waifs and Strays — (2002) Young adult story collection. Publisher: Charles de Lint is a thirteen-time finalist for the World Fantasy Award, and eight of his books were chosen for the reader-selected Modern Library Top 100 Books of the Twentieth Century. His best-selling and award-winning work has always featured teenage characters. Here, at long last, is a collection of his stories about teenagers-a book for teen and adult alike. From the streets of his famed Newford to the alleys of Bordertown to the realms of Faerie, this is speculative fiction that will tranfix and delight, that will make readers think and feel and keep reading. Waifs and Strays is a must-own for de Lint fans, and an ideal introduction to his work for newcomers.
 A Circle of Cats — (2003) Ages 9-12. A picture book with Charles Vess. Publisher: Lillian is an orphan who lives with her aunt on a homestead miles from anyone, surrounded by uncharted forest. She wanders the woods, chasing squirrels and rabbits and climbing trees. Free-spirited and independent Lillian is a kindred spirit to the many wild cats who gather around the ancient beech tree. One day, while she is under the beech, Lillian is bitten by a poisonous snake. The cats refuse to let her die, and use their magic to turn her into one of their own. How she becomes a girl again is a lyrical, original folktale.
Set in the countryside north of de Lint's fictional Newford, with some of the same characters as the duo's recent, acclaimed Seven Wild Sisters, A Circle of Cats is the long-awaited first picture book by long-time friends Charles de Lint and Charles Vess, whose masterful art is as magical as the story.
Illustrations by Charles Vess.
 A Handful of Coppers — (2003) A story collection focusing on heroic fantasy. Publisher: This collection of early tales, some of them unpublished, is essential reading for fans of World Fantasy Award-winner de Lint (The Onion Girl). The six Aynber and Thorn yarns that open the volume ("Wizard's Bounty," etc.) are chock full of slashing swords, magic and evil sorcerers, but lack depth. The three set pieces about Colum mac Donal, an outlawed Irish berserker who becomes part of King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table, exhibit more compassion and better plotting. The last and most compelling Colum piece, "The Fair in Emain Macha," deals with his return to his family in Ireland and the subsequent "King-Breaking." Somewhat atypical is "The Skin & Knife Game" (co-written with Lee Barwood), a fantasy-horror melange of creepy madness. All the stories are short and a bit light on the wordsmithing readers have come to expect from this master fantasist, but they are nonetheless fun to read and right on target for the sword-and-sorcery crowd.
 Quicksilver & Shadow — (2005) Charles de Lint: Quicksilver & Shadow is the second volume of my early short story collections. It focuses on the early contemporary, dark fantasy and science fiction stories, and it finally brings all of my Bordertown stories together in one place. The cover is done by MaryAnn Harris.
 Triskell Tales 2 — (2006) A collection of stories. Charles de Lint: Every year at Christmas time I write a short story for MaryAnn that I publish in chapbook form through my Triskell Press imprint. I've been doing this for twenty-two years now; the earliest stories were printed in editions of only one copy. It wasn't long before we decided to share the chapbooks as a Christmas gift for friends and family. In recent years, the stories have been reprinted in magazines, convention program books and my own short story collections — but their first breath of life has always been in chapbook form.
 What the Mouse Found — (2008) A story collection for ages 9-12. Publisher: This special collection gathers for the first time a number of obscure and unpublished children's stories by master storyteller Charles de Lint, each story featuring a brand new illustration.
 Yellow Dog — (2008) Charles de Lint: Yellow Dog was the Christmas chapbook from 2007. This a story which takes place in the American Southwest. It will be printed in two colors throughout, with a cover and several interior illustrations by me.
The Mystery of Grace — (2009) Publisher: On the Day of the Dead, the Solona Music Hall is jumping. That's where Altagracia Quintero meets John Burns, just two weeks too late.
Altagracia — her friends call her Grace — has a tattoo of Nuestra Señora de Altagracia on her shoulder, she's got a Ford Motor Company tattoo running down her leg, and she has grease worked so deep into her hands that it'll never wash out. Grace works at Sanchez Motorworks, customizing hot rods. Finding the line in a classic car is her calling.
Now Grace has to find the line in her own life. A few blocks around the Alverson Arms is all her world — from the little grocery store where she buys beans, tamales, and cigarettes (“cigarettes can kill you,” they tell her, but she smokes them anyway) to the record shop, to the library where Henry, a black man confined to a wheelchair, researches the mystery of life in death – but she’s got unfinished business keeping her close to home.
Grace loves John, and John loves her, and that would be wonderful,except that John, like Grace, has unfinished business — he’s haunted by the childhood death of his younger brother. He's never stopped feeling responsible. Like Grace in her way, John is an artist, and before their relationship can find its  resolution, the two of them will have to teach each other about life and love, about hot rods and Elvis Presley, and about why it's necessary to let some things go.
The Mystery of Grace
The Mystery of Grace tells the story of Altagracia — known as Grace — Quintero, a tattooed, rockabilly mechanic who finds her greatest joy in customizing old cars and building hot rods, and John Burns, a graphic design artist. Both of these characters have unfinished business that they need to deal with before they can move on with their lives. But, they meet and fall in love two weeks too late for it to be a happy ending.
It’s difficult to give a good summary without giving away some fairly significant plot details, so let me just say that The Mystery of Grace is Charles de Lint at his finest. One of his strongest talents is the ability to write a world into existence, and for the length of this novel, you feel like you are walking the streets of Santo del Vado Viejo. You can hear it, smell it, taste it.
The Mystery of Grace is different in setting, scope, and content than any of his other novels, but still manages to bear the firm imprint of de Lint's style. His characters shine in this setting — even the minor characters are fully fleshed out, and have vibrant, memorable personalities.
De Lint has perfectly paced the action in The Mystery of Grace. The first chapter captures your attention, and the story unfolds with impeccable timing. Love at first sight is a difficult plot device to portray convincingly, but here it works. Grace’s actions after the final confrontation at first bothered me slightly, but as I’ve sat and thought about it, the indecision Grace displays fits in perfectly with her character’s development, and now it seems like the only way it could have unfolded and worked with the rest of the story. The last few paragraphs are a flawless finish to a compelling tale. I got to the last page, and turned it in vain, hoping there would be more story. I didn’t want this story to end.
Charles de Lint has been called the master of urban fantasy, but his books are a world away from the current crop of trendy novels that feature vampires and the women (or men) who love them running amok in a big city. This is fantasy that deals with timeless issues in a modern setting. There are no elves or gremlins, just the wonder that de Lint imbues in a tale of loss and the mysteries of faith. His amazing ability is to make the normal seen capable of containing the fantastic, if we only knew how to see it.
I cannot recommend The Mystery of Grace highly enough. —Ruth Arnell
The Mystery of Grace
At first glance, The Mystery of Grace looks like new ground for fantasy writer Charles de Lint. The Mystery of Grace is set in the southwest, not de Lint’s usual Canadian town of Newford. Grace — short for Altagracia — Quintero is a self-described “gearhead,” whose first love is restoring hot rods. Her second love is tattoos, and her body is covered with them.
Once we get past these surface differences, though, The Mystery of Grace is a pretty familiar de Lint fantasy. The book is peopled with the usual array of characters — John, the artist; Dina, his good friend and practicing Wiccan; Vida, a tattoo artist; and Norm, the homeless Native American who sees spirits. This desert town is very much like Newford, de Lint’s iconic magical city.
After the death of her beloved grandfather, Grace discovers that there is a magical plane or “bubble” in her town. She determines to solve the mystery of the bubble and its inhabitants but is distracted when she meets John, a graphic artist who seems perfect but has a guilty secret.
The most original thing in The Mystery of Grace is the love story. The romance that unfolds between Grace and John is not like any I’ve read before, at least for the first two-thirds of the book. Then it slides into predictability.
After the startling opening of The Mystery of Grace, the tension seems to slacken. The timing of the plot is driven, to a large extent, by the Wiccan holidays Beltane and Samhain. These two dates are six months apart, creating an understandable lull in the drama, but generally the characters react with a surprising lack of urgency or anxiety as they make various magical discoveries. No one struggles with disbelief. Grace, despite her ethnic name and heritage, seems a lot like Jilly Coppercorn, except that Grace tends to whine a bit too much about how people react to her ink. The book was published in 2009; where I come from, we see so many tattoos on so many women that we don’t even pay attention to tattoos anymore. I found Grace’s concern and the reactions of some characters implausible.
In the final third of the book, Grace has to face the heart of the magical locus she’s found. As always, when de Lint deals with the heart of magic, the book does come to life. Like any de Lint book, this one is filled with music, in this case rockabilly and surf-guitar instead of Celtic music and folk music.
De Lint tries for something new here but doesn’t quite reach it. I actually felt a sense of dislocation. Everyone acted like they lived in Newford, but then once in a while someone would wander out into the desert or race a car down the interstate. Die-hard de Lint fans may enjoy The Mystery of Grace, especially for the early part of the love story, but this book is not up to his usual standards.
—Marion Deeds
Eyes Like Leaves — (2009) Publisher: Magic is already fading in the Green Isles, but it's still a time when myths walk the world and the children of the ancient gods are engaged in one final confrontation. But when legendary creatures wage war, it s the ordinary people who suffer the consequences — unless they, themselves, can find a way to bring an end to the hostilities. The trouble is, not all of them are able to pick a side. Eyes Like Leaves was written in the days of Moonheart and Charles de Lint's other high fantasy novels. The tale slept like a long-forgotten lover until he recently chose to  revisit (and polish) this never-before-published gem.
Eyes Like Leaves
The magic is leaving the Green Isles. The Summerlord Hafarl’s staff has been broken, and the Everwinter is coming to blanket the islands in snow forever. To make matters worse, the Vikings are raiding up and down the shore, laying waste to everything in their way. It’s up to Puretongue, leader of the dhruides, to weld together the last scraps of the Summerlord’s power that can be found in the people to create a defense against Lothan, and bring summer and magic back to the isles.
Eyes Like Leaves is well-paced, and the action scenes flash with energy. Charles de Lint shows signs of the bardic gift in his ability to make scenes come alive, especially the chase scene with the direwolves pursuing the tinker caravan.
While the characters are interesting and detailed, and individual scenes are beautifully written, the plot is oddly flat and lacks originality. This feels like a too-literal retelling of classical Irish mythology, without enough innovation to be fresh or exciting. It seems a little too scripted, with each character arriving just when needed, and advancing the plot in exactly the right direction. While terrible things do happen, there is not a great sense of tension — just a sense of inevitability.
This book proves to me that talent is not the sole ingredient of success. Eyes Like Leaves is well-written, but I never actually cared about the story. I never felt emotionally connected to the characters. While there is nothing overtly bad about the story, there is little here to merit recommending it above all the other quest fantasy novels that have been published.
Eyes Like Leaves is actually one of the first books Charles de Lint wrote, but it has never before been published. His editor told him that having published two secondary world fantasy novels, and one urban novel, that the next novel he published would pigeonhole him. He put this manuscript on the shelf and published Yarrow instead, putting his feet firmly on the urban fantasy path, a decision that I, and legions of his other fans, are grateful for. He recently reworked Eyes Like Leaves and released it for publication. This is obviously not de Lint at his peak, but there are the glimmers of greatness here that he has realized in his later works. I would recommend this book for fans of Irish mythology and de Lint completionists. —Ruth Arnell
Eyes Like Leaves
 Charles de Lint wrote Eyes Like Leaves in 1980, but he didn’t publish it then. In 1980, he explains in the foreword, he had written two “alternate world” stories and one contemporary fantasy; de Lint thought that a third alternate world fantasy would typecast him, and he didn’t want to be restricted. Thus the book languished for thirty years before being brought out.
The cover on the Advanced Reader Copy I read features a regal, red-haired, antlered woman, wearing an oak-leaf mask, a fox at her feet. It has almost nothing to do with the book (except perhaps the leaves) but it is gorgeous and inviting and I hope that Tachyon Press doesn’t change a thing.
In Eyes Like Leaves, the land of the Green Isles is under double assault. The yellow-haired Saramand and their warships have come a-viking, and this time they plan to colonize, while winter creeps steadily down from the north. Strange demons and beasts roam the night. This is because Hafarl and Lothan, sons of the Horned God and the Lady, are locked in a struggle, and Lothan is winning. Hafarl rules the spring and summer while Lothan is the winter lord, but Lothan intends to rule the green isles year round. In their battle, Lothan broke Hafarl’s staff, the symbol of his power, weakening him. Now a handful of humans with green magic must make their way to the heart of winter and help the Summer Lord regain the balance.
This backstory flows out over time, but de Lint pitches us straight into the action, as Tarn, a wizard in training, battles a “stormkin,” one of Lothan’s monsters. Tarn was an orphan boy who was taken in by a dhruide or tree-mage, Puretongue. Tarn learned quickly but Puretongue left before his lessons were complete, called away by a vision. He charges Tarn to find a particular person with green magic. This person will be vital to the Summer Lord.
Later Tarn finds the person: a frail, red-haired young woman named Carrie, who is in the company of a family of tinkers. A Saramand raid left Carrie an orphan and a refugee. Raised in a different religious tradition, Carrie finds wizards and magic frightening and has no idea of the sheer power of her own magic. Before Tarn can win her over, the tinkers are beset by the stormkin.
Puretongue, meanwhile, has located Deren, another person with magic. They head north. A harper on board their ship tells Puretongue about a dream he’s had, about three runes. Plainly the three runes directly relate to the way to defeat Lothan, but Puretongue doesn’t understand how.
The book is written in a mosaic style with shifting points of view, dipping into the minds of the various pilgrims, even Lothan and Lothan’s primary minion, the Captain. The primary story here, though, is Tarn’s. Tarn feels that he has always fallen short. The abandonment by his parents left a deep wound and he must battle his pride as well as blizzards and stormkin at every step of his quest. Of course there is more to his story and the information that Puretongue reveals midway through the book plunges Tarn into a downward spiral.
Carrie has a lot of aspects of a certain type of female character that showed up a lot in 1970s and 1980s fantasy. She has deep and powerful magic but is nearly unconscious of it. Consciously, Carrie frequently frets and worries that she isn’t strong enough and can’t do what’s needed, while she intuitively does the right thing. Apparently red-haired big-eyed waifs can’t consciously wield their own power, because this makes them too scary. De Lint also falls short of delivering a real conflict between Carrie’s power and her belief. Carrie is a less successful character than Tarn mostly for these reasons.
The magical system here is old-school, with a nice use of standing stones and ley lines as convenient power stations for the wizards. One sequence in the last third of the book reminded me, jarringly, of the first Star Wars movie, when there is a “massive disturbance in the force.” The event is supported by de Lint’s magic, but just goes on too long.
Shifting points of view make for a very choppy read at times, especially when de Lint throws in italicized flashbacks. Seeing how rough the technique is, I was reminded how much de Lint has perfected the mosaic technique in later books.
As always, though, de Lint’s story is filled with music, elegant prose and clever turns of phrase. Here is some music around a tinker campfire:
Kinn tucked his fiddle under his chin and began another tune. Fenne plucked a strange harmony on her cittern that, by all rights, should not have fit for the old tune Kinn drew from his strings, but its notes slipped snugly into all the right places just the same.
In the forward, de Lint says that although he went through the manuscripts and made grammar changes, he did not change the plot. I enjoyed the book and I think the classic Good versus Evil plot still holds up, but Eyes Like Leaves is most interesting as a look back at a gifted writer’s beginnings. —Marion Deeds
The Very Best of Charles de Lint — (2010) Publisher: At turns whimsical, dark, and mystical, this extraordinary collection of retold fairy tales and new, modern myths redefine the boundaries of magic. Compiling favored stories suggested by the author and his fans, this delightful treasury contains the most esteemed and beloved selections that de Lint has to offer. Innovative characters in unexpected places are the key to each plot: playful Crow Girls who sneak into the homes of their sleeping neighbors; a graffiti artist who risks everything to expose a long-standing conspiracy; a half-human girl who must choose  between her village and her strange birthright; and an unrepentant trickster who throws one last party to reveal a folkloric tradition. Showcasing some of the finest offerings within the realms of urban fantasy and magical realism, this essential compendium of timeless tales will charm and inspire.
The Very Best of Charles de Lint
With a title like The Very Best of Charles de Lint, I had high hopes, and I have to say that they were met. Yes, this is the best of Charles de Lint’s fantasy. Chosen in consultation with his readers on Facebook and on his website, de Lint has culled down decades of writing to create a special volume with beautiful cover art by Charles Vess that highlights the reason why de Lint is considered one of the founding fathers of urban fantasy. I have been reading de Lint for close to two decades now, and am quite the completionist. I buy chapbooks and limited editions, and keep them in slip covers. With a background like that, I consider myself well qualified to judge if this is indeed the best of his writing. And, with the caveat that he is pulling from his short stories, because it’s difficult to anthologize his longer novels in this kind of a volume, he has done an excellent job of not only selecting his best writing, but doing so in a way that showcases the many types of storytelling he has done over the years.
The Very Best of Charles de Lint starts with his older, lesser known work that is in a more traditional vein, with harpers and fairy maidens in a Celtic-type setting. Using the characters of Cerin and Meran from those tales, he transitions to their setting in modern Newford, a fictional North American city that is the site for most of his better known novels and short story collections. Every character and setting that I had hoped to see again was included in this volume. We meet Jilly and Sophie, Angel, Geordie, Christie, Saskia and the gemmin. We visit Tamson House, Crowsea Street, Mr. Truepenny’s Emporium and the Tombs. He skillfully interweaves European and Native American mythic traditions with a modern setting and applies the archetypical figures of those traditions to create new mythological creatures at home in urban surroundings. The reader finds magic in the characters, in the surroundings, and in the very prose, as de Lint imparts to his readers a new way of looking at the world out of the corner of your eye to see the magic that lurks in abandoned cars and in abandoned people.
Reading The Very Best of Charles de Lint was something I tried to stretch out, to savor each word as it unfolded on the page. What ended up happening was I sat down to read one story, and as that story ended I would look to the next page to see what story was coming up and would get drawn into the next tale. Lather, rinse, repeat, and I sped through The Very Best of Charles de Lint without noticing the passage of time. It was remarkably like a reunion of old friends and family, where everyone knows each other intimately, and you just sit down and chat and catch up and hours pass before you know it.
I haven’t always loved de Lint’s later work, but this volume reminded me why, when asked to list my favorite authors, he is always in my top five recommendations. When he is on his A-game, no one can do it better than de Lint. And The Very Best of Charles de Lint truly is Charles de Lint at his very best.
—Ruth Arnell
 The Painted Boy — (2010) Young adult. Publisher: Jay Li should be in Chicago, finishing high school and working at his family's restaurant. Instead, as a born member of the Yellow Dragon Clan — part human, part dragon, like his grandmother — he is on a quest even he does not understand. His journey takes him to Santo del Vado Viejo in the Arizona desert, a town overrun by gangs, haunted by members of other animal clans, perfumed by delicious food, and set to the beat of Malo Malo, a barrio rock band whose female lead guitarist captures Jay's heart. He must face a series of dangerous, otherworldly — and very human — challenges to become the man, and dragon, he is meant to be. This is Charles de Lint at his best!
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Charles de Lint is a pioneer of urban fantasy and has won awards for his fiction, including the World Fantasy Award. His non-fiction has included book and music reviews, critical essays, opinion columns and encyclopedia entries. He is the main book reviewer for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. He's also been a judge for the Nebula Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Award and the Bram Stoker Award.
De Lint has taught creative writing workshops in Canada and the United States, and served as Writer-in-residence for two public libraries in Ottawa.
A professional musician for many years, he writes original songs and performs with his wife, MaryAnn Harris. His main instruments are guitar, flute, fiddle, whistles and vocals. You can read Charles de Lint's thoughts about his work at his website.
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