Lynn Abbey

Urban fantasy like Terry Pratchett is urban fantasy, set in an urban setting, this is gritty and grim and nasty things happen to nasty and nice people. Dark Fantasy isn't really my thing but some of these stories about a fantasy world where various characters' actions have consequences in other stories. I missed the 5th instalment in this series and I think that was a bit more pivotal than a lot of other sets of stories.
I remember gobbling up some of these when I was younger, my tastes have changed since then.… (more)

As with the first volume, it is slow to get going though eventually there is a lot of violence and gore, a lot of it centred around a new villain who is introduced in this book but should at least have been mentioned in the first volume since he is such a threat to Stephen, the romantic lead of this series.

Some of the violence is in a fantasy context as magic figures far more strongly in the second half of this book than previously. Also, Wildecent finally discovers who her parents are (at least, we think she does - the revelation is made while she is sent out of the room, but hopefully Ambrose tells her 'off stage') but it doesn't lead to anything significant as, when he offers to escort her to France to try to track them down, she refuses. Possibly this was meant to be followed up in the planned extra 3 volumes which were never published, but as it is, this comes across as a damp squib after the build up over the previous volume as well.

I'm not sure how this story would spin out to five in all, although the pacing is always very slow until a violent episode occurs at the end of each book, so maybe that's how it would've been handled (that is, dragged out very slowly). As it is, we are left with an unresolved question at the end because Wildecent goes off thinking Ambrose betrayed her and Alison. I don't find it convincing that Wildecent believes that Ambrose sent men to drag off her and Alison to be raped - a fate Wildecent manages to escape - and that Alison has been murdered (she is rescued by Stephen and Ambrose) all on the basis that the kitchen woman heard the two men go past in the night, as even Wildecent realises this was some time after the abduction. Especially since the new villain, the illegitmate son of Stephen's uncle, has already attempted to rape Alison not long before. At the very least, the new villain is a far more likely culprit for what has gone on and the misunderstanding seems very artificial.

As with the first book, I think it would've benefited with taking out all the fantasy and making it a straight historical about the clash between Saxon and Norman cultures, and the effect on women in particular. There is more than enough material for that, and it would have been more convincing, plus I think such a judicious rewrite could have condensed the whole thing into one novel and we could have had a resolution for the characters.… (more)

The setting is Saxon-about-to-become-Norman England. King Edward (the Confessor) is dying, the countryside is beset by murderous men who turn out to be working for one of the claimants to the throne, and two women, Alison and Wildecent, raised as sisters, are caught in the struggle when a young Norman male, Stephen, staggers to their stronghold, wounded. Stephen has been attacked while trying to take a despatch cross country for his uncle. Raiders subsequently menace the countryside around, and Alison's father, Saxon lord of the settlement, has to ask Stephen's uncle for help against the raiders, even though this puts him in a difficult position because Duke William of Normandy is a rival claimant to the throne and it is not clear whether William should be Edward's successor, or Harold Godwinson or Godwinson's brother.

Alison's companion Wildecent has been passed off as an illegitimate half sister to Alison, although it emerges that she was brought to the settlement when she was five and is no relation at all. Alison has been secretly taught ancient goddess based magic from Celtic and pre-Celtic times by the sister of her dead mother. Wildecent has shared in the herbal lore taught them both, but feels left out because she lacks the psychic abilities that Alison has been trained in. They must be wary of anyone else finding out, as the church would view their abilities as witchcraft.

Despite the opening sequence of the attack on Stephen, this book is slow to get going and I struggled to keep interested. Partly because it focuses on two young women in Saxon-about-to-become Norman England, and their lives mainly consist of spinning and weaving, and creating herbal remedies, realistically enough. However, the book is fantasy, not straight historical fiction because Alison has the ability to read people's minds, and later on, a Norman male character is introduced who is a sorcerer whose magic actually works.

Wildecent's feeling left out leaves her vulnerable to the attractions of the sorcerer, Stephen's friend Ambrose, who might teach her his different magic, based on sympathetic magic and physical objects and not dependent on the psychic abilites which Alison and her aunt use, and which they view as linked to the ancient worship of the goddess. It remains ambiguous as to how much of a villain Ambrose really is, since although he is hostile to Alison and her aunt, he seems to have Stephen's best interests at heart.

I did not find the characters well defined. There is a lot of head hopping and it is hard to find any of them sympathetic, for example, Stephen makes a half hearted attempt to seduce Wildecent. Alison is characterised by being headstrong and is sometimes rash in using her gifts, and both she and her aunt are quick to assume that Wildecent - who has vague memories of her real parents and seems to be Norman - must be a supporter of Duke William of Normandy and hence cannot be trusted. The relationships don't ring true. Wildecent is probably the most sympathetic character, level-headed and putting up with a lot of suspicion from her nearest and dearest, especially as we learn that when six years old she was locked in a dark cellar for hours just for asking about her real parents.

There is one jarring continuity error where Wildecent defends herself against an attacker with a knife she had in her sleeve, but then a couple of pages later it is back in her sleeve in circumstances where she cannot have put it there herself.

Like Abbey's Rifkind books, this is illustrated, but by a different artist, and unlike those, the reproduction here is very poor and indistinct.

The story ends, not exactly with a cliffhanger, but with a question mark over the future of the two women, though it continues in 'The Green Man' which I intend to read next.… (more)