DAUGHTER OF THE FOREST: Book 1 (The Sevenwaters Trilogy)

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Even though Sorcha is very much a pagan, with her beliefs about the spirits of the woods and her interactions with trees and herbs intimately bound up with her faith, and she is largely ignorant of Christian beliefs, the kindly old hermit Father Brian who taught Sorcha and her brothers to read is a Christian, a fact which Sorcha also simply accepts. As months and even years pass by, Sorcha's lonely existence is only brightened by her hope of breaking the spell on her brothers. But the stakes were so high and Sorcha was faced with more and more difficulties along the way, that for a long time, I was conviced this would end badly.

To make matters worse, her father doesn't know whom to trust anymore, as the mysterious Cathal also disappeared at the same time as the baby. In litera-chah, heroes are supposed to have depth of character, complex psychology, and tragic flaws.Christian houses of scholarship and contemplation were ransacked, their peaceful dwellers killed or put to flight. When her father's new wife, the Lady Oonagh, attacks Sorcha and her brothers, Sorcha alone is able to escape. All that being said, Marillier nowhere engages in preaching or sermonising, and all of the assumptions are background ones, indeed even Sorcha’s chief objection to the idea of an arranged marriage at the start of the novel, is more a twelve year old’s desire for things to stay the same, than an objection to the concept of arranged marriage generally.

Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. He, too, learned to ride and to wield a sword, but more often than not you’d find him helping to deliver a calf or tending a prize bull gored by a rival. It definitely could’ve been evened out more, as there is a sex scene that’s touched upon, but nowhere near as graphic as the r*pe scene. On the one hand, Marillier describes the skills allotted to women, from textile arts, to gathering food in the forest, and especially Sorcha’s knowledge of herb lore and midwifery, as the difficult and genuinely detailed skills they are, no less worthy of professional admiration than other crafts; indeed the very descriptions of Sorcha’s spinning, weaving and sewing the shirts would give me finger ache even without the starwort. As Fainne grows into a young woman, her heavy workload increases, leaving no time for anything but the practice of the craft.

She can't refuse, or her evil grandmother will punish her by hurting those she loves--her father, her young cousins, and her most precious treasure of all; her childhood friend, Darragh. My only minor problem with Sorcha, is the inconsistency surrounding how well she can make herself understood without speech. It follows Sorcha's journey as she struggles to break the curse her stepmother Lady Oonagh casted upon her brothers, turning them into swans.

It shows how the mindset is altered, how overwhelming it can be and how hard it is for someone to escape that event.

Though it takes her awhile to realize it, she falls in love with Red, but leaves because she thinks he only loves her because the Fair Folk bound him to her when they named him her protector. Set mainly in ancient Ireland, the series covers four generations in the family of Sevenwaters, which enjoys a special relationship with the people of the Otherworld.