Book Review: Blackthorn and Grim series, by Juliet Marillier

Note: This review is about book 1 (Dreamer’s Pool) and book 2 (Tower of Thorns), sort of combined. I haven’t read book 3 (Den of Wolves) yet, but I’m looking forward to it. While I think you could probably read book 2 on its own if you really wanted to, I don’t think it works well as a stand-alone.

TL;DR: Read the clean rating section. If that doesn’t stop you from wanting to read these books, read them. If you’ve read and liked Marillier before, read them. If you like complicated characters with horrific backstories who are nevertheless doing their best to live reasonably decent lives, read them. They’re great.

Rating: 4.5

Clean rating: PG-13 definitely. Largely for thematic elements (there’s some pretty majorly violent/awful backstory for both our main characters, including rape, torture, injustice, and various other horrible events). The backstory is neither glorified nor described in depth, but it’s pervasive in how these characters experience life. The books are not light, fluffy reads, though I also didn’t find them dark and depressing.

Book 1 also has some sexual content that I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, I don’t like reading the sexual elements (though there was not a lot of detail, and it was all told in a very repressive tone by a character who clearly didn’t approve of his own behavior). On the other hand, whereas some sex scenes are just thrown in for fun, the couple of incidents in this book are absolutely integral to the storyline.

So while I can’t recommend the books to various of my friends and family who I know share similar values, I have loved them and will continue to read them.

Short summary: Blackthorn is a healer who is too angry to want to heal anyone anymore. When she’s given a chance to escape a terrible situation or die, she takes the deal that lets her escape, even with some conditions on her freedom that tend to ... chafe. Grim is big, strong, and loyal to Blackthorn. He’s got his own ugly past to deal with. Together they get drawn into complicated challenges to help people who may or may not deserve help.

Blackthorn and Grim’s characters and growth create the series arc, along with some mysteries from their pasts. The individual challenges create the individual book arcs.

What I liked: Oh, Marillier. It’s probably easier for me to just skip to what I didn’t like. But I’ll hit the highlights here.

Blackthorn. Grim. Although I think I like Grim a little better. He is not my usual kind of character; I tend to like witty, funny, clever—though not obnoxiously charming. But Grim is wonderful. He’s strong, determined, steady, kind, loyal. The revelations of his backstory throughout book 2 didn’t surprise me overmuch, but they gave such lovely depth to him as a person. I kind of want to hug him—except that would be super weird, because he’s also kind of this huge ogre sort of a fellow. It would be kind of like hugging a slightly friendly rock.

Blackthorn, for all her thorniness, is a lovely character too. Not the sort of person you want to sit and chat with (she would hate that anyway), but reliable and stronger than she thinks. I like how we see both of them slowing growing and changing and softening. Plus, without giving spoilers, I love what happens with the characters in the end of book 2. It made me happy and sad and yelling-at-the-characters-for-their-idiocy all at the same time.

As with the other Marillier I’ve read, the writing is exquisite. The storytelling is excellent. The twists worked—though I figured out what was likely to happen with large parts of the plot, there were plenty of surprises along the way. And the stuff that wasn’t surprising was still an enjoyable journey.

What didn’t work for me: Ummm... I’m thinking... Okay, I do admit I would have preferred some sort of workaround for the sexual content in Dreamer’s Pool (although I giggled just a little bit every time the character mentioned his “manhood”).

I was about to go on a bit about how I had no idea how to pronounce stuff. But then I saw that book 2 had a pronunciation guide that I just missed. Oops. I listened to the first one, so I got pronunciation of names like Flidais (Fliddiss) and Emer (eh-ver!) and Laois (leesh!) from that. But in Tower of Thorns, I spent the entire book wondering how I was supposed to pronounce Geilèis (ge-lace, apparently). So I guess I can’t complain about that now.

Last words: I recently had a friend do a critique for me on some stuff I’m working on, and she compared the writing to Marillier, and I kind of wanted to reach through the computer and hug my friend and then do a little happy dance. If my stories could one day be classed even remotely close to Juliet Marillier, I would feel like I had won at all the things.

Book Review: Juliet Marillier's Daughter of the Forest

Rating: 4/5 stars (maybe even 4.5)

Clean rating: PG-13. There is discussion of violence but not particularly gore, and in my opinion the violence was not really a problem. There is also some torture, and you see the after-effects, not the torture itself. But that’s kind of rough anyway. The worst is that there is rape, and while it is not described in gory detail, it is emotional and ugly and horrific (not much of a shocker, considering that it’s rape). So the content is emotionally fraught, but I didn’t find it to be morally ugly, if that makes sense. There was no glory in the terrible things that happen in this book; there was a very strong awareness of the ugliness—which, in my opinion, makes it a much stronger book.

Short summary: Sorcha is the youngest of seven children. When their father marries a sorceress, Sorcha and her brothers try to protect themselves from her. They fail and end up with a terrible spell placed on them that only Sorcha can undo, but only at great personal cost. The book is an extended version of “The Six Swans,” set in medieval Erin (this is Ireland, right? my history knowledge is sooo very bad).

What I liked: It would probably be a shorter post if I just skipped straight to what I didn’t like. Because pretty much I liked everything.

For starters, the tone and voice and language. It is beautifully written. The words are fluid like water rushing past and so easy to read. This is not flowery, overblown language. It is simply the loveliness of gorgeous, perfect prose. It is a beauty that I often try to achieve in my stories and that Marillier does in a way that makes it look effortless. Okay, enough gushing. It’s wonderful, that’s all I can say.

Next: I have read versions of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” where, at the end, I could not keep any of the princesses straight. I recently read a book that had only four siblings, and I’m still not sure I could name a single one of them. But in this novel, it’s been a week or so since I read it, and I’m pretty sure I can not only name each of the six brothers, but I can also tell you a little bit about each one.* They all stood out as separate people, which I think is a difficult task in cases like this. But Marillier did a good job with it.

Sorcha was a likeable character. She had a lot of ugliness to deal with, but she loved her family and she was hardworking and she was overall pretty darn awesome.

What didn’t work for me: Well, we’ve got to come up with something here, right? So I will say that it was long. Not only is it over 500 pages, but the print is really small. This is undoubtedly a turn-off for some, and I confess I wasn’t thrilled about it. But it didn’t really feel long to me. As in, “Really? It’s not over yet?” I’m sure I could come up with something else to complain about, but they would be minor quibbles.

Last words: It’s a good thing I read this because I had once considered doing a novel-length retelling of “The Six Swans” (there’s something about this tale that I just love), but now I can honestly say that the best possible version of this story is already written. I might someday revisit it just for fun, but I would have to place it in a contemporary setting and with a very different emotional tone and just a wildly different story overall because this version is pretty much perfect. If you like fairy tale retellings with a sort of lush magical tone, you must read this!

* Okay, now I have to test myself. Mild spoilers contained herein. Liam: leader, oldest, warlike. Diarmid: idiot, hothead. Cormack: Conor’s twin, a little warlike, loved his dog. Conor: druid. Finbar: moody, into justice. Padriac: loved animals, a healer. Wow, look at that! Easy peasy.

** P.S. I liked this one a lot better than Wildwood Dancing, even though I also liked that one.