Books: Heart's Blood

Heart's Blood
By Juliet Marillier
Copyright 2009
400 pages

Marillier is one of my favorite authors when I want to escape and relax with a good, solid read, and Heart's Blood did not disappoint. This was a little heavier on the romance than her Sevenwaters series but I was okay with that.

Caitrin is an adult-aged runaway whose ill fortunes have left her penniless and trying to get away from the man who would beat her. She ends up at Whistling Tor, a remote place filled with ghosts and secrets.

The crumbling fortress belongs to Anluan, a chieftain who is not well-liked by those he rules. His family, they say, is cursed, and his woods are guarded by an unseen force.

But Caitrin has been trained as a scribe and Anluan hires her to help with his family's historic journals, transcribing them from Latin. She quickly learns that all is not as it seems at Whispering Tor and things that go bump in the night, while scary, sometimes have explanation, even if a mystical one.

Sorcery and the black arts hold the entire land in thrall. It is a calculated evil, and a chilling one.

As expected, Caitrin and the chieftain take a fancy toward one another, but can they tame the ghosts of Whispering Tor long enough to see if love will grow?

One of the things I like about Marillier is that she takes familiar legends and turns them into something more. This book is a take on the beauty and the beast legend, for sure, and probably others that I may not be familiar with. I greatly enjoyed reading this and recommend this author to fans of fantasy or Gothic romances.