Six Swans And Their Kick-A** Sister

We all know I love a great retelling of a fairy tale, and one of the reasons why I love a good retelling is that most original fairy tales are just that, a tale.  They are usually fairly short, with very little character development or world building, they were never meant to be full length novels, in fact I am pretty sure there were very few full length fiction novels back in the fairy tale day.  This gives authors a lot of room to expand and adapt these tales into a myriad of wonderful full fledged stories, complete with wonderfully rich worlds, characters with depth, and a different look at what the original tale might mean.
This brings me to one of my favorite books Daughter of the Forest by Juliette Marillier.  This is the first book in the Sevenwaters series and while I enjoyed the whole series, it is this first one that I really love and will focus on.  This book is a wonderfully imagined retelling of the Six Swans.  I love first of all that this is not another retelling of Cinderella or Snow White, while I some of my favorite books are adaptions of these tales, I have to admit there are a lot of them out there.  The second thing I love about this book is that it follows the original tale quit faithfully while telling an amazing story, with fully developed characters, story line and a believable world.

The story follows Sorcha the youngest of seven children and the only daughter of Lord Colum.  The book is set in a Medieval era Ireland with Lord Colum owning the lands of Sevenwaters.  Sorcha is for all intents and purposes raised by her six older brothers as her mother died when she was very young and her father seemingly wants nothing to do with her.  The children are all very close and the boys are very protective of their precious little sister.  Eventually their father remarries the Lady Oonagh, who is actually a fairly powerful sorceress who has bewitched her father.  Lady Oonagh wants any sons she has to be the ones to inherit Sevenwaters so she casts a spell over Lord Colum's children.  She succeeds in turning all of the boys into swans while Sorcha escapes.  Sorcha hides in the forest where she meets the Fair Folk who inform her if she can sew six complete shirts out of starwort, a brittle needle-like plant.  The other part to lifting the curse is that she must remain absolutely silent, telling no one why she may not speak, not even in writing.  She discovers she may speak with her brothers once a year in human form and they vow to try and protect her as she stays hidden in the forest, silent and always working on the shirts.  It takes a very long time to make each shirt as she has to gather the small plants , make them into cloth and turn them into shirts.  The plant is not an easy one to work with and leave Sorcha's hands withered and twisted.  She is eventually found in the forest by a group of men who rape her, her
brothers help heal her and kill her attackers but she is left emotionally scarred by the ordeal.  She also finds a Briton named Simon who is hurt and whom she nurses back to health.  After more time as passed Sorcha is once again found, this time by a band of Britons led by Lord Hugh of Harrowfield, who suspects that Sorcha may know what happened to his brother Simon.  The Fair Folk make him her protector and she is taken back with Hugh (who is called Red because of his hair).  Through all of this Sorcha remains silent, trying to complete her brothers shirts to lift the spell.  Through out her captivity Sorcha makes friends with a women named Margery and her husband John which has far reaching consequences through out the rest of the series.  Most of the rest of Hugh's people think that she is a witch since she still stays silent and works on her strange starwort shirts.  Eventually it comes out that Hugh's uncle (who has also been attacking Sevenwaters) may have had a hand in Simon's disappearance.  Hugh decides to leave and to try and get to the bottom of the who mess and proposes to and marries Sorcha to try and give her some protection while he is gone, Sorcha loves him, but thinks that the only reason Hugh says he loves her is because of an enchantment placed on him by the Fair Folk so he will protect her.  While Hugh is gone Sorcha is seen talking to one of her brother late at night during one of their once a year visits as humans.  Seeing his chance to try and cover up his misdeeds, Hugh's uncle has her declared an adulterous witch and sentences her to burn at the stake.   As she is about to be burned she

throws the shirts she has finished over her swan brothers as they come flying to help her, unfortunately she did not finish one sleeve of one shirt and her brother Finbar is left with one wing in place of an arm.  Hugh comes back and is outraged to find his bride tied to the stake but her brother, now human again declare the marriage void and refuse to let him near her.  Sorcha convinces her brother to let her say good-bye and she frees Red from any obligation to her, still thinking he only loved her because of an enchantment.  Sorcha and her brothers return to a ruined Sevenwaters and begin the process of restoring it to it's former glory.  The Lady Oonagh has disappeared with her son (their young half-brother) and sets up part of the story for later books.  Hugh surprises Sorcha by showing up at Sevenwater declaring he has abdicated his rule in favor of his brother Simon (who has been found at this point) and wants to stay with Sorcha.  The Fair Folk tell her that Hugh was never under any enchantment that his love has always been real.  The brothers each go their separate ways finding lives for themselves where they fit best. This concludes the first part of the Sevenwaters series.

I love this book so much, it is dark and gritty and magical and funny and deep and entertaining and classic and just really awesome.  The later books in this series are also very good, but to me this will always be my favorite.  Be warned this is not a kids book, there is some very dark stuff in here, but everything is in here for a purpose which is one of the things I loved about the book, everything was there for a reason.  The later books really build on the events of this book, but there are no major cliff-hangers in this book to force you to read the others, it really does work as a stand alone book. The blend of some history and magic and geography are very well done in this book.  I have rambled on long enough, I think a lot of people will really enjoy this book, if just for the excellent writing if for no other reason, so go get it and tell me what you think.  I give it 9 out of 10 marshmallows (I've been on a S'mores kick lately)
How do you think this book stacked up to the original Six Swans tale?  Could you stay silent for years to save your siblings?  Do you have somebody in your life who would do this for you?