by Juliet Marillier
Fantasy
Amazon / Goodreads
Plot Summary
Lovely Sorcha is the seventh child and only daughter of Lord Colum of Sevenwaters. Bereft of a mother, she is comforted by her six brothers who love and protect her. Sorcha is the light in their lives, they are determined that she know only contentment.
But Sorcha's joy is shattered when her father is bewitched by his new wife, an evil enchantress who binds her brothers with a terrible spell, a spell which only Sorcha can lift-by staying silent. If she speaks before she completes the quest set to her by the Fair Folk and their queen, the Lady of the Forest, she will lose her brothers forever.
When Sorcha is kidnapped by the enemies of Sevenwaters and taken to a foreign land, she is torn between the desire to save her beloved brothers, and a love that comes only once. Sorcha despairs at ever being able to complete her task, but the magic of the Fair Folk knows no boundaries, and love is the strongest magic of them all...
Review:
This is a book that was truly written to be savored. The pace in the beginning is leisurely, as the narrator - Sorcha - sets up the nature of life in this version of Ireland, of the enchantment of her village and home and their relationship with the 'fair folk'. Truthfully there were times that I felt the book to be too slow, but that impatience quickly disappeared as I became used to the the author's way of unfolding the story. And Sorcha has a way of dropping foreboding hints of what is to come to keep the reader on their toes. If you are familiar with the original fairy tale of The Six Swans, like I was, it was pretty tense reading this story and waiting for the main elements of the fairy tale to come up. Especially when I knew that things would get so much worse before it could get better.So for me, this was a luxurious fantasy - one that felt very real despite the magic, because we are so focused on Sorcha and have to spend so much time in her head. Her development throughout this book is fantastic - it's lovely to read how she grows into a strong young woman who faces so much adversity, after being so sheltered and loved by her brothers. And the author does a great job of fleshing out different and particular personalities in the six brothers. They all fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, and it's easy to see how they all got along and depended on each other as they were growing up.
