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The pages of this book flow like a river of sorrow and anguish, and pain, and loneliness, courage, and hope, and an unyielding love. But the stream is strong so once the current of the Six Swans retelling has caught you, you will be there, held like under a spell and unable to stop. It is not an easy tale but, oh, a beautiful one.

The fairy tale is known, and so I am not spoiling anything by telling you that Daughter of the Forest tells us a story of Sorcha, the youngest child of the Lord of Sevenwaters whose father is bewitched by and then married to the evil sorceress who changes Sorcha’s six older brothers into swans. The girl flees into the forest, and when she learns that there is a way to lift the curse, she is determined to do so, regardless of how daunting the task and hopeless the chance. (By the by, the forest is a living creature in its own right and much better than the one attempted in Uprooted).

There are six brothers: solemn Liam, the oldest, a leader; sunny Diarmid - the hot-headed warrior; Conor and Cormack, twins like mirror images but, oh, so very different! one deep and subtle beyond years and immersed in the old ways, the other like quicksilver, bold and fearless; Padriac, eager for knowledge, inventor and explorer whom all the wild creatures know as a friend, and finally Finbar, the most sensitive and mysterious with the Sight to see farther than an ordinary man and an ability to heal the spirit. Considering that they spent most of the book in the bird form, it needs to be said that Ms Marillier did a wonderful job fleshing their varied personalities out.

But the tale belongs to Sorcha [FYI, in case you didn’t brush up your Gaelic, you should pronounce it SOR-ra] and she is the first person narrator. Sorcha lives her life sheltered and knows nothing about the world until one day the world comes right into her face. She is a creature of the wild, barefoot and somewhat magical. Nobody really raised the girl so all her childhood she did whatever she wanted, mostly mimicking her brothers in a very masculine household without a woman able to reign the girl in. Her brothers dote on her, and even if she is not spoiled, she is most definitely pampered and sheltered. No wonder she didn’t get along with the evil stepmom, you think.

Obviously, but in order to understand the gravity of what has happened, you need to understand the connection between the siblings: “the seven of us were of one flesh and one spirit as surely as the seven streams of our childhood flowed and mingled in the great shining heart of the lake�. Taking away the brothers feels as if somebody robbed Sorcha of parts of her soul or dissected parts of her body. And so she agrees to make six starwort shirts, and the solitude of her quest is further compounded by another condition - absolute silence:

“From the moment you leave this place till the moment of your brothers� final return to humankind, no word must pass your lips, no cry, no song, no whisper must you utter. Nor will you tell your story in pictures, or letters, or in any other way to living creature. You will be silent, mute as the swans themselves. Break this silence, and the curse remains forever.�

Nobody said it was going to be easy. In fact, the story swiftly takes you from bad to worse to horrendous in a sequence of events that are wonderful and terrible, and plain and twisted.

“You will find the way, daughter of the forest. Through grief and pain, through many trials, through betrayal and loss, your feet will walk a straight path.�

But Sorcha is a fighter and she is a survivor. In fact, she is one of the fiercest heroines in all fantasy I have ever read. I know what images spring to your mind when you think about a “tough-cookie� female protagonist. There are countless warrior-princesses, assassins, fighters, and other martially adept figures known and loved by many. I’m sure I don’t need to name them for you. Even if the book starts with a relatively young and innocent girl, after reaching a breaking point she either turns to violence or becomes a disillusioned schemer well versed in the ways of the “real world�. Not Sorcha, no easy way out for her. Her path, her task in inhumanely difficult and yet she does not resort to violence (which is means employed by majority of the contemporary authors, how easy it is, you give the girl a sword or something and just off she goes on a killing spree), she doesn’t transform into an alter-image of her enemy either. As she fights against the despair and disasters that befell upon her and the wretchedness of her fate, she remains her true self, patient, emphatic, tenuous healer. She doesn’t give up even if she gives in at times, she bends but she doesn’t yield and she never, not even once, wallows that the price she is paying is too high.

And it is high, exorbitant even. There are hunger and loneliness, there are all kinds of mistreatment including rape and bereavement including loss of friends both in human and animal form. The threads of Sorcha’s story are tangled, knotted, falling into chaos from bad to worse to beyond endurance and yet, with every twist of sharp thread and every starwort thorn stabbing her fingers, she prevails. There is one thing that needs to be said about the rape scene. It is brutal, wrecking, it truly annihilated me emotionally. In a way, the difficulty in reading it only attests to author's talent. Fantasy these days, and not only grimdark fantasy, also epic and high fantasy, gives out violence like candies and rape like cookies, as all fans of ASOIAF know. And yet, this was painful to take in so proceed with caution.

But as much as Daughter of the Forest is about endurance, it is also a love story. Love is beautifully wrought out by Ms Marillier and with exquisite care. There is nothing instantaneous about it, noting primarily carnal (can you believe that Sarah J. Maas?!), although it is undeniably sexual. Red will melt all your chocolates ladies. Marillier gives you a romance that is made of unspoken words and unmade gestures, unconditional trust, and unconscious need. One of the best out there (view spoiler)[(although I, most certainly didn't like the late attempt at a love triangle. That made no sense for me) (hide spoiler)].

“You know not, yet, the sort of love that strikes like a lightning bolt; that clutches hold of you by the heart, as irrevocably as death; that becomes the lodestar by which you steer the rest of your life. I would not wish such a love on anyone, man or woman, for it can make your life a paradise, or it can destroy you utterly.�

Marillier shows us the true face of magic for what sets the brothers free is not some ritual or the properties of starwort plant, but the sacrifice and love woven into shirts stained with blood from Sorcha’s hands and wet with her tears.

The prose is beautiful, it grows on the reader, wild and unforgiving in a forest of emotions wild as the Fae as the tale branches, and twists, and leads the travellers to places far beyond their wildest imaginings. Simultaneously, the novel is most definitely slow-paced. The newer books just accustomed us to movie-style non-stop action, whereas the older novels spare pages to build the ambiance, and paint the background of the background. After 100 pages in I had expected some major drama/action/development, but all I got was premonitions and foreshadowing. If you are partial to this kind of buildup, you might struggle with the book. What is more, even though it is a historical fantasy ripe with all things Celtic, some "suspension of disbelief" is required to enjoy the story fully (because it is a fairytale retelling after all).

I liked that the ending wasn't neat, that some strands of the tale were left jagged, its heroes a little bit damaged, some questions still unanswered, some answers already lost. And I am looking forward to continuing the series.

Other Sevenwaters books:

2. Son of the Shadows
3. Child of the Prophecy
4. Heir to Sevenwaters
5. Seer of Sevewaters
6. Flame of Sevenwaters