Title: Daughter of the Forest Series: Sevenwaters #1.5
Author: Juliet Marillier
Published: April 1, 1999
Genre(s): Fantasy
Page Count: 411
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads: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...
In a story that is complex and masterfully told, Juliet Marillier retells Hans Christian Andersen’s The Wild Swans and/or the Brothers Grimm’s The Six Swans in a way that is beautiful and haunting. On an intellectual level, I enjoyed this book very much—I believe that this is a truly wonderful piece of historical fantasy, and I would certainly not hesitate to recommend it to anyone.
Daughter of the Forest is slow-moving, with a languid pace that seems to lull the reader along the story, although the scenes themselves are intense and vivid, and utterly heartbreaking. Marillier knows how to make appeal to her readers’ emotions, and she doesn’t do it in an exploitative way.
My favorite part of the book was certainly the various relationships protagonist Sorcha had. The bond between herself and her brothers and with her eventual love interest was real and was shown to be lasting and strong. One scene, when her six brothers come to her after she’s experienced a brutal gang rape, is like a punch in the gut. The love these men feel for their sister radiates off the page—they would do anything to protect her, make any sacrifice, do anything to see her safe. I’m not a crier, really, but if you are, that scene will hurt. Likewise, Sorcha experiences a similar growth of trust and love with her future husband, Red. He isn’t, perhaps, the nicest of men, but he is a good man, and the way he interacted with Sorcha was touching and ultimately rewarding. Perhaps the prince in the original fairytale wasn’t the sort of man I’d like for myself, but Marillier’s Red certainly was.
All that aside, however, I believe Sorcha stands up very well on her own. As anyone familiar with the source material will know, she doesn’t have an easy childhood. She has, literally, an evil witch of a stepmother, and she spends most of her time irreparably harming herself just on the chance that she’ll be able to save her brothers’ lives. She’s taken away from her home in Ireland to western England, where she’s looked upon with hate and distrust. Unable to speak due to the Fair Folk’s bargain, Sorcha is alone in a hostile environment. But she never loses herself. Throughout Daughter of the Forest, this woman is strong and determined—she has demons but she never lets them win the fight. She accepts Red’s love on her own terms, and they are very much equals (which, I imagine, was somewhat unusual in the time period). From the first page to the last page, Sorcha was her own person, unwilling to bend to anyone’s will without her consent.
“Why should I be polished and improved like goods for sale? I might not even want to marry! And besides, I have many skills, I can read and write and play the flute and harp. Why should I change to please some man? If he doesn’t like me the way I am, then he can get some other girl for his wife”
This book, in my eyes, has few faults. It is fairly dense, and reading it is certainly mentally exhausting. Daughter of the Forest is an involved read. It’s full of nuance and subtlety, all woven into the story with a deft and skillful hand. It may take me some time to recover from this, but the experience was well-worth the very real book hangover I experienced in the aftermath of the final page.
