To Read & To Write

I might come back to this one: I just couldn't get into the story as much as I would have liked. Something about the very drastic contrast between the arbitrariness of day to day life in the coffee shop, family stuff, and romantic relationships and its stark contrast to the world-history of the Wars between the Others (of various mythological manifestations: i.e. vampires and sorcerers, etc.). Put more simply, there wasn't enough a blurred line right off of the bat between the fantastic and the normal (a blurry-ness which gives that aura of wonder to the fairy-tales I typically read). Also, this narrative reminds me a bit of the television show "True Blood" and I was never a fan of that one either (although my husband is). Lastly, I'm an old soul, admittedly, and McKinley's writing here caters more to young souls (personal opinion); the narrator herself is fairly young (early to mid 20s?) and everything in her world is deemed devoid of mystery on accounts ...

Now this - this is a good old-fashioned fairy-tale. Perhaps somewhat predictable, at least for me, this by no means ruins the tightly bound suspense Juliet Marillier builds in her perfectly crafted novel "Dreamer's Pool", the first in a series. The story focuses not on the lady elucidated on the cover, but another, Blackthorn, an ex-healer, or wise woman as they used to call them, who is wrongfully imprisoned by an unjust ruler of treacherous lands. Who knows when the story takes place exactly, but it can be deduced that it was a pre-industrial and extremely rural time, a time of forests, kingdoms, peasants, princes, and princesses, good and evil kings, a time seething with enchantment as well as the inevitable fey, a time physically and mentally harsh, a time when people swam through confusion to find what it is we call *value*. While in prison, Blackthorn becomes an aquaintence of the husky, burly Grim, more like a beast than a man, brutal and monstrous yet gentle ...