I went into this book without really reading much about the premise, and I was pleasantly surprised that it is basically like Labyrinth meets The Forbidden Game, except set in a historical period in Bavaria. If you're not familiar with those works, both the Bowie film and the 90's YA series by L.J. Smith, deal with a teenage girl getting drawn into the world of the Goblin King, who challenges her to solve a puzzle or beat a game, or else end up as his bride. There are echoes of Persephone and Hades in this story, as the submission of the girl is supposed to usually save her world from some kind of earthly tragedy, like an eternal winter. In Wintersong, our heroine is 19-year-old Liesl, the eldest of her family who put her own wants on the backburner to help her family run their inn, and to ensure that her younger brother, Josef, can achieve his dreams of becoming a professional violinist. Liesl herself loves music as well, and secretly longs to be a composer, but the fact that she is a woman and is expected to care for her family prevents her from seeing that dream come to fruition. Meanwhile, she quietly resents her younger sister, Kathe, who is beautiful, materialistic, and intended to marry their childhood friend. Beneath the surface of this somewhat typical historical story, there is the folklore of the Goblin King, an immortal man (who in every iteration of this story is super, super hot) who rules over the underworld which is full of goblins, changelings, and horrifying creatures of mythology. He holds the balance between the world above and the world below, and, according to lore, he must take a human bride to keep the balance going. 
 S. Jae-Jones' writing throughout is captivating and engrossing, and if you enjoy historical settings and stories rich in lore, her style will be immensely readable. She does a really good job building the tension and growing the relationship between Liesl and her Goblin King, and I think circumvents the annoying Stockholm Syndrome-esque path to romance that this kind of story could have taken. The character development of our heroine, as well as of the Goblin King, is well-done, and I thought the side characters were pretty fleshed-out as well, and multi-dimensional. This book is beautifully written, well-paced, and definitely draws the reader into the world. I am very excited to read book two, which comes out next February, and get to visit this world again.