January's recommendation: Mortal Love, by Elizabeth Hand.
I recommend this book on the suspicion that it's the sort of thing which would reward a second (or third, or fourth) reading. It reminds me of Tam Lin in that way, or Fire and Hemlock, which seems to be not entirely coincidental -- although this is not a Tam Lin story.
It almost gets too indirect for me, dancing back and forth through time and around the subjects it's discussing without ever touching them head-on. That's part of why I think it deserves re-reading; I'm sure there are connections there I didn't spot the first time through. The story takes place in several different centuries, with a number of people who are related or bear the same name or are otherwise somehow connected, and there are more poets, painters, and other artistic sorts showing up and being quoted and being name-dropped than you can shake a stick at.
So what's it about?
It's, erm . . . about Tristan and Iseult . . . kind of . . . and a bunch of other things too. It's about folklore, I think is almost the easiest way to say it. Lots and lots of folklore, some of which I recognized, some of it not, that I think has been blended until you can't say it's any one story.
Easier to say what it's about thematically, rather than in terms of plot. It's about mortal love -- surprise, surprise. It's about madness and inspiration. It's about inhuman creatures who cannot create art, and what happens when they and mortals come into contact. It's about Beauty in this world, and the price it exacts from its worshippers. It's about Cornwall and London and Maine, about outsider art and the people who collect it, about lunatic asylums and nineteenth-century pigments and the smell of apple blossoms. Much of it has the dizzying feel of irrationality, and it's hard to describe in any terms other than irrational ones.
There were points in the book where I wasn't sure if I liked it, because I felt like I was going in circles through the same maze, and I wasn't sure Hand was ever going to lead me out. She did, finally, at least a little; the ending worked for me, although up until about twenty pages from the end I thought it wasn't going to. I suppose this is a book which requires a little patience, a willingness to wander in that maze because it's the same maze most of the characters are stuck in and you're not going to understand it unless you spend some time there. It's almost like Gormenghast in that way, though the overall mood is much different.
This is a novel of lushness and description; no slam-bang action here, just plenty of scenes that read like a trip on the hallucinogenic drug of your choice. It's not like a lot of the other fantasy out there, but it's certainly an interesting read.