Heir to Sevenwaters [Mass Market Paperback]

 

 

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If you enjoyed this authors' earlier trilogy set in the Sevenwaters, you will likely enjoy this one too. Plucky heroine, a romance, a quest where the heroine must struggle through many dangers with her own skills and wit, and mysterious magic forces.

The series is feeling a bit formulaic now, but it is still a fast and enjoyable read.

The book seems to leave some loose threads, strongly hinting at future books to come in this setting.

In this book we return to the world Marillier created with her Sevenwaters Trilogy, an ancient Celtic world where we see heroines undergo some sort of quest involving supernatural beings, otherwise known as faeries. The heroines come from within the same family and in the actual trilogy itself a generation separates each story. Heir to Sevenwaters takes place within the same generation as the last book in the trilogy and the heroine of this novel is the cousin of the heroine in the last book. I really enjoyed the trilogy, and while I do not think this book is as good as the first book, it still brings forth the author's talented story telling.

Clodagh is the third of six daughters born to Sean and Aisling, the current residents of a household buried deep within the forests of Ireland. She has a twin who she can communicate with telepathically (as all twins could in the original trilogy). Clodagh is the practical sister, the 'boring' sister. Of all of her sisters, Clodagh would be the most likely to stay at home and look after household affairs, and she does exactly this when her elderly mother becomes pregnant with a seventh child. This child is very important to the family because he will become the heir to Sevenwaters, a boy who will be able to take his father's place and inherit the land. The child is finally born and many people come to celebrate the birth. Characters from previous novels, such as Conner and Johnny make an appearance at this time, along with some new characters like Cathal, one of Johnny's men. All seems to be going smoothly until one night when the baby is stolen away in the night, when Clodagh is with him of course, and in its place dirt, leaves and twigs are left. The pile acts just as a human baby would, it cries and eats, but only Clodagh can hear it and see it move. She feels guilt for being there when her brother was taken, and her family seems to be blaming her for it. Also, her twin sister is getting married to a foreigner and is cutting herself off from Clodagh, leaving her feeling more alone than she's ever been. Clodagh believes that the child is a changeling and her brother was taken away by the good people. Fearing that her own family will kill the faery baby and fearing that her brother is already far beyond her reach, Clodagh takes the changeling child and takes it upon herself to find her brother's kidnappers and bring him back on her own.

Clodagh, like all of heroines in this series, is reserved and practical. She's surrounded by whimsy and fantasy but she herself is always firmly planted on the ground. Despite this she shows courage and bravery and undergoes her quest with perseverance. Well written, as one will come to expect with this author, and a fast paced plot.

I hadn't realized there was a fourth book in this series; I had read the first two years and years ago, and had heard the third wasn't very good so I hadn't bothered to continue (I did mostly enjoy the first one, and found the second one interesting, albeit a bit weird and complicated.) Still, I decided to try out her most recent one as the premise sounded intriguing, and I am most certainly glad I did! This may be my favorite of the three I have read, in fact.

The family tree of Sevenwaters is extremely complex, so to keep matters simple, all you really need to know is that the protagonist Clodagh is the daughter of Lord Sean of Sevenwaters. Her mother gives birth to the long-desired male heir to the estate towards the beginning of the novel, but things go terribly wrong when the boy is switched for an Otherworld changeling while in Clodagh's care. Clodagh is blamed, and the situation worsens when she realizes that she is the only one who sees the changeling for what he really is - to the rest of her family he appears as only sticks and stones. Deemed a liar, Clodagh flees with the changeling to search for an entrance to the Otherworld in a bid to get her brother back. She almost immediately bumps into Cathal, a man talented at fighting and seeing the future, who proves to be an immense help along the way. Together they batter their way through countless obstacles, and Clodagh's affection for both the changeling she has named Becan, and the steadfastedly loyal yet infuriatingly mysterious Cathal, deepens. But when she finally comes face-to-face with the faerie lord who has stolen her brother, a secret she never expected threatens to destroy any future she could possibly have with the man she's given her heart to.

Juliet Marillier's quality of writing is excellent as always, and although some references to events in previous novels were lost on me, the story can easily be enjoyed by someone unfamiliar with the rest of the series. I particularly liked seeing the love Clodagh develops for Becan, the changeling who is a) a constant reminder that her brother has been kidnapped, and b) a being that resembles a tree more than a human. Cathal was also an appealing character, although occasionally his refusal to open up and explain things to Clodagh became irritating (especially when it was clear that if he'd shared a bit more information, they might avoid some of the messes they get into entirely). Still, his taciturn nature was compensated by his devotion to protecting Clodagh no matter what the cost. Honorable mention goes to the faerie Lord of the Oak, who was one of those villains we love to hate.

Once Clodagh's journey began, the plot was perfectly paced, with the right amount of exciting near-death moments and character-building scenes to give the reader a sense of the danger Clodagh and Cathal were facing while allowing for a romance to develop. Perhaps the beginning chapters were a bit slow-moving, but it was needed given that this is the fourth in a series, and the history between Clodagh and Cathal needed to be set. Overall, a fantastic journey right to the very end!

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