This review contains spoilers.

At long last, after the cancelation of the trade paperback release for unknown reasons (the representative of Tor whom I spoke with at the American Library Association convention certainly seemed surprised), this book is out in an American paperback edition in mass market format. Five years after the end of The Dark Mirror, King Bridei is on the verge of driving the Gaels out of his territory. To seal an alliance, he sends the royal hostage Ana to marry a chieftan in the north, with his bodyguard and spy Faolan leading her escort.

This is possibly Marillier's best work to date, and is certainly her most surprising. As always, it is almost as much a Romance as a Fantasy, but as is rarely the case in such a story, the author appears to set up a different romance before the true one. Even more rarely, out of the three men who Ana is caught between, two of them are good men whom the reader would believe deserve her. The story is equally satisfying as historic fantasy, with an ample share of the plot taking place at court or in the field with Bridei, although on these fronts the main plotlines are more predictable. However, although the "whats" may be easy to guess, it is worth reading to learn the "hows." There are some surprising small twists as well.

There are some unsatisfying aspects of this book, for example the truth about the chieftan's brother's past. It appears that in Marillier's world, a good person can be put in situations where they are forced to do bad things, or where there are no good choices, but a good person can never do something bad without purpose, even if it is accidental. Anything that could be construed as truly evil has to be done by an evil person.

Secondly, there is the discontinuation of the human sacrifice we saw in The Dark Mirror. A large part of Bridei's fitness to be king was demonstrated by his willingness to help with the sacrifice and bear the horror of it. Now that he is king, he puts an end to that ritual? The reader is expected to accept it as a necessary evil in the first book and to see it as something that can be put aside in the second? These two are a strange step towards the black and white of good and evil in a series that refuses to look at war in such simplistic terms.

My most important question: will The Well of Shades be here in paperback about a year after its release in hardback (meaning around May 2008), or six months later when it will have been a year since this book's paperback release? ( )

Blade of Fortriu is the second book of the Bridei Chronicles. I found it perhaps better than the first one, but still the plot was very foreseeable and not very tightly paced.

The main character is Ana, a hostage princess sent to make a political marriage. However, the prospective groom turns out to be less than pleasant and soon enough Ana finds herself the target of amorous intentions of no less than three men. The only help she has are the king's spy Faolan and a bunch mysterious birds.

So, the story is not very original, and at times waiting for things that you know are going to happen can get very annoying. Still, there is something I like in Marillier's writing and I think I will go on to read the third book. ( )

I am loving this series almost as much as the Outlander series. Great characters, riveting plot, solid writing, full of well-imagined historical goodness. ( )

Book 2 of a Trilogy. This fantasy is set in Britain, but revolves more around the Picts, the pre-Celtics inhabitants of part of the Isles. The romance is more pronounced, and better handled, than in some of her earlier work. ( )