Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier.
Read for: Once Upon a Time Challenge
This is a novel based on The Six Swans fairy tale. In the fairy tale a king with 7 children (six sons and one daughter) gets remarried to a jealous woman. The new queen turns her step-sons into swans who can only return to their human form for 15 minutes every day. Luckily, the daughter was able to escape before she was turned into a swan. If she can sew six shirts out of starwort for her brothers and remain silent the whole time, she can release them from the spell. Eventually, another King finds the remaining daughter, falls in love with her and marries her. In her new home, she is wrongly accused of a crime and as she cannot speak to defend herself she is sentenced to burn. She has almost finished her brothers’ shirts, only one is missing a sleeve. Just as the fire is being lit, her brothers, as swans, appear and she slips the shirts over their necks one by one. She is then able to speak and proclaim her innocence. She is released from the stake and her accusers are burned in her place. She and her husband live happily ever after and all of her brothers are turned back into men, but for one brother who is left with a wing in place of his arm.
In Daughter of the Forest, Marillier basically retells this story. And I mean basically. I’ve never found this particular fairy tale to be all that compelling but I loved this version of it. I have to admit, I had a hard time getting into the story at first, but once I did, I could not put the book down. Marillier tells the story in a Celtic setting and adds some extra magic to the story by including the fair folk, who assist the heroine (Sorcha) in her quest and setting the story in an enchanted wood that protects Sorcha through the first part of her task.
Marillier also does a good job of spinning the love story. Fairy tales always seem to have people falling in love at first sight and living happily ever after, but in this retelling, the love between Sorcha and Lord Hugh grows gradually and we as readers see the love before the characters do themselves.
And even though I knew what the ending of the story was, I still found it very suspenseful! I could not stop turning the pages, waiting to see what would happen to Sorcha as she was being led out to be put to death. Would she finish the shirts? Would her brothers come? How would she be saved from the fire? The ending of this story is quite different from the ending of the fairy tale, but also quite similar. I don’t want to give away the ending so that’s all I’ll say. I think the ending is much more satisfying than the ending of the traditional story.
I also found the characters in this story very compelling. They were so easy to love (or hate, as the case may be) but they still had faults. I especially liked Sorcha’s brothers and the relationship they all had with her and each other. It was so much fun to read about them.
I really liked this book and can’t wait to read the next one. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who likes a good fairy tale!
