Plain, dutiful Liesl has given up her dreams of music to help her mother tend their inn, but when she was a child she played in the woods with the Goblin King. Her beautiful younger sister Käthe is tone deaf, engaged to the man Liesl once hoped to marry, but she dreams of bigger places than their small village in the Bavarian forest. But the Goblin King does not forget and if he does not take a bride the world will fall into eternal winter. Which sister will he take? Which sister will he keep? I have a soft spot for books that take well-established sources and weave old tropes into something magical and new. In Wintersong, S Jae-Jones takes an inch of Labyrinth, a pinch of Rossetti’s Goblin Market, and a hint of the Rape of Persephone to create a Germanic fairytale romance: dark, Gothic, and sultry. The disadvantage of retreading a well-worn path is that it can rob a story of surprises. Thankfully, Jae-Jones can write – her prose is as lush as her narrative – so even when things feel a little too familiar (peaches, masked balls, heterochromia), they’re still a delight to read. The better news is that Wintersong lays out its stall, entices you to buy something familiar, then sweeps you off to a dimly-lit…