Son
Of The Shadows
[The Sevenwaters Trilogy 2]
Juliet Marillier
Pan
Macmillan:
TOR 2001
654p pbk $18.50
ISBN: 0-330-36267-4
Son of the Shadows is a story set in Ireland in the dark ages. The main character, Liadan, is a young healer with the gift of “the sight”, which enables her to experience premonitions. This, ultimately, leads to the fair folk (Immortals who live on Earth, who are somewhere between humans and gods) meddling with her life and twisting it to suit their own hidden purposes.
Although Son of the Shadows has an immensely complicated and unique plot, the book is not heavy reading. Juliet Marillier seems to have a talent for summing up whole sentences with single words. Although the images are fleeting and brief, the reader can see the fantasy as clearly as he or she can see the real world. This means that the reader can advance through the plot very quickly, without losing sight of detail.
This is fortunate, because the plot is epic. No other book has constructed a story quite like this, with the exception of Daughter of the Forest (the previous installment in this series).
That can actually be a problem. Son of the Shadows seems to fall too much into the mould that the first book has made for it. The two plots are similar, the two main characters seem to be exactly the same. Son of the Shadows is slightly predictable if you have read Daughter of the Forest. But when the first story was so fantastic, no-one is complaining.
Overall, Son of the Shadows is a fantastic novel, an intriguing story which panders to the tastes of its intended audience (Fantasy readers, young adult or adult.) The book is fantastic, we shall anticipate its sequel eagerly.
