Tag Archives: Enchantment

Beauty by Robin McKinley

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Synopsis:
A retelling of the classic tale of Beauty and the Beast.

Review:
I suppose it’s because of all the babysitting I’ve done, but I just couldn’t shake the image of Belle in her big yellow dress as I read Robin McKinley’s Beauty. But setting that aside, I would have loved this when I was 12. It’s swoony and romantic, featuring a narrator who’s my kind of girl. It hews very closely to the classic tale, while adding some imaginative elements such as the whispering voices who care for Beauty (so called because of her lack of same).

The Wandering Fire by Guy Gavriel Kay (The Fionavar Tapestry, Book 2)

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Synopsis:
Book 2 of the Fionavar Tapestry finds five Canadian students returning to an alternate universe where they continue to fight an epic battle against a demonic demigod and step further into their unique destinies.

Review:
As with any good second book in a trilogy, The Wandering Fire deepens the Fionavar mythology and heightens the stakes for all involved. Continue reading →

Stone of Farewell by Tad Williams

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Synopsis:
Young Simon is in the middle of the biggest adventure his land has seen in years, but if he and is friends fail their mission, the wicked Storm King will prevail. Book Two of Memory, Sorrow and Thorn.

Review:
I know it sounds like Lord of the Rings, but it’s all in the details, people. (Though he does team up with a dwarf and spend some time with some Elf-like folk.) I found the first book in the series, The Dragonbone Chair, a bit of a slog, but this book picked things up considerably. Williams has no great facility with dialogue, but by the end of the book I’d forgiven him because he’d come up with some wonderful set pieces and had deepened the mythology to a suitably intriguing point. Continue reading →

The Windsingers by Megan Lindholm

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Synopsis:
The second in the adventures of gypsy teamster Ki, hired by a wizard to reunite his head with the rest of his body, which have been seized by the menacing Windsingers. Meanwhile, Vandien has contracted himself to a fool’s errand retrieving a treasure of the Windsingers, trapped in a sunken temple.

Review:
As I mentioned in my post on Harpy’s Flight, it doesn’t seem like Lindholm will be developing an overall mythology, though she is using some recurring characters, and might be continuing some of the Windsinger conflict in the next book, Limbreth Gate. Continue reading →

Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier

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Synopsis:
Sorcha and her six brothers have always protected each other and their home in the heart of Ireland, but when the men come under a deadly enchantment, Sorcha must complete a grueling task and endure mute exile across the sea in Britain with the hated enemies of her kin.

Review:
Daughter of the Forest is a retelling of a fairy tale made famous by Hans Christian Anderson. Sorcha’s six brothers have been turned into swans, and Sorcha commanded by the Lady of the Forest to weave shirts of stinging nettle which will return her brothers to their true form when thrown over their heads–only if Sorcha can complete her task without speaking a word or telling anyone her story in writing or sign language. Marillier is a native New Zealander living in Australia who has a great love for Celtic lore, and sets her story against the backdrop of the invasion of Ireland (Erin) by the Britons. She explores the culture clash between the country’s native paganism and the newly arrived Christianity in a way that feels natural and organic, not intended to pass judgment on either belief system (unlike in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon, which I was unable to read more than a chapter of because her hatred hurt my heart). Continue reading →