March's recommendation: In the Forests of Serre, by Patricia McKillip.

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You never know, in Serre, when and where a tale will become true . . . .

I've read McKillip's work before, and liked it, but I don't think I've loved any of it until I read In the Forests of Serre. It's short, and I don't know what to say about it except that it's a story where everyone in it is living inside fairy tales that mutate around them at every turn. There's a witch in a cottage made of bones who curses a prince for killing her favorite chicken, a firebird who is the heart's desire of whoever follows her, a heart hidden in a casket inside the heart of a dragon, a tale with a life of its own, a monster that is dead and cannot die . . . .

To describe the plot gives little sense of the feel of the novel. The prince of Serre has been dead inside since his wife and child died; his father decides to marry him off to the princess of the neighboring kingdom of Dacia so that Serre will have heirs, and will have Dacia and its power to boot, without war. But everything goes strange, because Serre is permeated with ancient, wild magic, that answers more to tales than to anything else. A wizard goes with the princess to protect her, but protection and threat can switch places without warning. The witch wants a replacement for her chicken, of all things, and the chain of events this leads to both does and does not follow the logic of fairy tales.

Everything I try to say about this keeps wandering off into disconnected images. But maybe that's the best way to describe it.

I suppose the most coherent thing I can say is that this book feels like it gets inside the fairy-tale cosmos without losing the techniques of modern fiction; you get the symbolism, the powerful images, but also characters with enough depth for you to care about them. It's an impressive balancing act; my hat off to her, for accomplishing it.