How could the second book be as good as the first?! I’m in love with this series. Bring on book 3! ( )

The disappointment.... Years ago I read this book and I really enjoyed it. I read it some months after the first one and, even though I never liked the romance, I remember liking some elements of the story. Now that I reread it, I have no idea how I excused so much.

This book is a sequel to Daughter of the Forest and follows Sorcha’s daughter, Liadan. Liadan has powers of her own and her story influences future events just like the path of her sister Niamh.

At first I was enjoying this book. I even tried to excuse everyone thinking how Liadan was so special and the best woman ever as the story being told from her self absorbed perspective. However, given the events of the story, that justification doesn’t hold. Everyone really does think all of those things about Liadan. This main character also has magical powers that are very convenient for the plot because she not only can communicate with her brother, she can also read someone’s thoughts and see visions of the past, present and future! I ended the book really disliking this character.

If there is one character I hate more than Liadan, is the love interest. Bran is the sexist man that hates all women and tells Liadan how unique and not like other girls she is. I have no idea how he is known as this great clever warrior when his actions make no sense strategically. Besides that, Bran and Liadan are each other’s one true love after “knowing” each other for a few days only. There is an hint that them being together is the will of mysterious ancient forces, but if anything that makes it worse!

I also can’t stand how unfair everyone was to Niamh, Liadan’s sister, and the treatment she got from her parents was so out of character. I absolutely hated how Liadan thought she was so special and how she acted when Niamh told her what was happening in her marriage. Contrary to Sorcha and her brothers, Liadan’s bond with her brother and sister feels weak and disconnected. Liadan thinks more of herself than anyone else while being complimented for being so selfless. There is a moment in the book when someone says Liadan is the favourite daughter... what a great family. I feel so sorry for Niamh, even though I didn’t really like her at first too.

While the former book had a mention of love and marriage between cousins that was in the background enough that I could ignore it, but in this one the incest is essential to the plot. The characters see it as wrong, but their behaviour about the situation was so horrendous that it seems like readers are meant to see it as right (especially given how the story ended). Once again there is also a romance between a 16 year old and a 20 something year old, which I guess it’s just common in old fantasy at this point.

There were so many stories! Why are there so many tales in the middle of the book? Everything was an excuse to tell a story often very loosely related to the plot.

The “emotional” moments didn’t work since I wasn’t invested in any of the characters after some chapters and reading the last 150 pages of this book was a struggle.

The reason that this book gets 2 stars instead of 1 is because I was engaged at first and I liked the writing for the most part. I read the Portuguese translation and occasionally there were odd word choices, but overall it was still a nice translation. Not atmospheric like the first book, but some passages still had a mysterious magical feel to it.

In the end I am left very disappointed and with the hope that the third book is better even though I know already it will not be as good as the first one, given the premise and the fact that it’s a sequel to this. I will never reread this book again, but I will still reread the first one and treat it as a standalone. ( )

Book 2 in The Sevenwaters series. Sorcha's children's are all grown and the story is told by her youngest daughter Liadan. Liadan, like her mother has the gift of sight, and the skill of healing. Secrets are revealed, people from the past re-appear and alliances are shaken when Liadan is kidnapped by a band of rouge warriors. The journey she is on will test her will, her faith and the ties that hold the people of Sevenwaters together

[a:Juliet Marillier|8649|Juliet Marillier|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1373081365p2/8649.jpg]'s writing is so beautiful and she sweeps me away into this old Gaelic world. Historical Fantasy, romance, a family saga-this book has all of that and more. A wonderful series I will continue to the end. ( )

I found it a bit more slow-paced this second time reading it. ( )

Second in the Sevenwaters series. Marillier treads a fine line between combining the myths and tales and historical, geographical details. This is Ireland, make no mistake, sometime in the 'dark ages.' Sevenwaters, the small fiefdom, is a remote pagan holdout in the north but slowly they are losing ground. They are most desperate to regain control of three tiny islands off their coast and this makes them vulnerable, not only to the ever expanding Britons, but to the few remaining magical adepts who, as Marillier puts it, have no scruples about exceeding the boundaries and practicing the darker arts. This installment is the story of Sorcha's children, especially the youngest daughter. The family does have a penchant for falling madly in love with the wrong person, and Liadan is no exception. What I truly enjoyed was learning something about the founding of the special island of ethical (sort of) warriors for hire and her love affair was quite a cliff hanger. So, overall, good. As ever Marillier's plots depend totally on the reader suspending judgement about general clunky obviousness, but it's the genre and it's ok! ***1/2 ( )