A chapbook.
The Winter Triptych is a story plucked from a tapestry’s thread. In
one panel Liese is a scullery maid working in Queenskeep, where tragedy
and treason have ruled for one hundred years. In the night, she chases
ghosts up a winding stair. There, in another, Isele is a traitor’s hope, and here a huntsman seeks to unwind them from a curse’s knot. The
panels flow together as the story unfolds, until ghosts and curses
collide at the top of the Keep.
“Nicole Kornher-Stace is a remarkably fresh literary
voice that sounds like no other. The dreamscapes she paints with her
words are magical and breathtaking. As dangerous as it may be, you
still want to walk around in her world and get to know the people
there.” – Ann VanderMeer, editor of Weird Tales
“Nicole Kornher-Stace ‘The Winter Triptych’ is an icily
glittering marvel of storytelling construction. This wicked tale of evil queens, mad huntsmen, martyred witches and a terrible curse that
unfolds over a century executes its sleight-of-hand in diabolical
layers. The immediate tableau before your eyes never flags as it pulls
you in with its sweeping cast of characters, coldly terrifying villains
and earnestly compelling heroines. And underneath it all, piece after
piece locks and turns into place, until the entire triptych unfolds in a stunning revelation of inexorable fate, time-bending wonder and
blood-curdling horror. I hold Nicole in both awe and envy: at the start
of her career, she has already produced a masterwork.” – Mike Allen, Nebula Award nominee and editor of Clockwork Phoenix
“‘Winter Triptych’ is a ghost story Maid Marion would
have read to Robin Hood under the covers. Joan of Arc, discovering a
kindred spirit a few chapters in, would straightway have dictated a fan
letter to the author. Had the child Snow White been told this tale,
she’d’ve knocked out stepmama’s gimlet eye with one speedball pitch of
her poisoned apple, then run away to the greenwood to join up with Black Meg and her outlaw band. Nicole Kornher-Stace plays with Time like it
was her very own Tetris game. She has crafted a Winter Triptych out of
words that reveals some startling new detail every time you open it.” – CSE Cooney, author of The Big Bah-Ha
“‘The Winter Triptych’ is a gorgeous labyrinth of words, a vivid dream-world of ghosts, ruined towers, mad queens, and revenge
biding its time. Its language is as rich as plum-cake, but it presents
the reader with a challenge as well, parts that fit together like
puzzle-pieces to form a story familiar and yet not, darker and stranger
than the fairytale we remember. This is a story to savor by a fire on a cold night. Be warned: it will continue to sing in your head long
after you have laid down the book.” – Theodora Goss, author of In the Forest of Forgetting
