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sukeyrh's review against another edition
2.0
Good story, but the conversations are very repetitive. I really didn't need the "boys will be boys" conversation that many times. The story is intriguing, but I won't be continuing with the series.
kelsenator's review
emotional
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal cruelty
Minor: Miscarriage
loreofthebooks's review against another edition
1.0
I wanted to read this because I thought it would be a great read for me, Ireland, witches, what could go wrong?
Apparently everything, this book was a big no for me. I had trouble getting into it.
But, I wondered, did it just struggle in the first book and was the second book any better?
Well, I wanted to find out.
Apparently everything, this book was a big no for me. I had trouble getting into it.
But, I wondered, did it just struggle in the first book and was the second book any better?
Well, I wanted to find out.
catherine_t's review against another edition
2.0
Alainn McCreary is a young woman living in sixteenth-century Ireland. When her mother died, her father felt unable to care for her, so begged the local lord, Hugh O'Brien, to find someone to take her in. O'Brien's wife Lady Siobhan insisted that the girl be raised with their two boys, though the local healer Morag was in charge of her care. As Alainn grew, Morag became aware that the girl possessed magical abilities. When O'Brien's 12-year-old orphaned nephew, Killian, comes to live at the castle, Alainn uses her magic to help heal both his physical and emotional wounds.
Killian and Alainn, along with the two O'Brien boys Riley and Rory, grew up as friends. But now that they are grown, Killian and Alainn can no longer deny the love that has grown between them as they've matured. Killian, though, is to be a lord in his own right, and Alainn is just a peasant girl. Or is she? For Alainn is about to learn the truth of her birth...
I wanted to like this book. I thought it was right up my alley: Irish-based fantasy. Alas, halfway through I realized I was actually reading an historical romance that was light on the history, and there was little enough magic to be found. Oh, Alainn does perform the odd bit of magic, and fairies are mentioned several times, but hardly enough, in my mind, for a fantasy novel.
The characters are fairly stereotypical. You've got Alainn, the peasant girl who suddenly learns of her superior parentage, and the noble youth, Killian, who's willing to throw away everything to be with the woman he loves. (Very King Edward VIII!) Surrounding them are the overbearing father, Hugh O'Brien, and the practically invisible Lady Siobhan. Morag is a grumpy old woman, and the castle cook--called, usefully, Cook--is fat and jolly.
One of the O'Brien twins is warrior material, whilst the other is a scholar.
And if we get right down to the nitty-gritty basics... I stumbled over sentences that made no sense, several cases of poor grammar, and an idiosyncratic use of commas.
There are more books in this series--eight in all, if I recall correctly--but I'm not likely to go looking for them. Your mileage may vary, of course. If you like romance with a dash of history and a pinch of magic, well, this may be for you. It just wasn't my cup of tea.
Killian and Alainn, along with the two O'Brien boys Riley and Rory, grew up as friends. But now that they are grown, Killian and Alainn can no longer deny the love that has grown between them as they've matured. Killian, though, is to be a lord in his own right, and Alainn is just a peasant girl. Or is she? For Alainn is about to learn the truth of her birth...
I wanted to like this book. I thought it was right up my alley: Irish-based fantasy. Alas, halfway through I realized I was actually reading an historical romance that was light on the history, and there was little enough magic to be found. Oh, Alainn does perform the odd bit of magic, and fairies are mentioned several times, but hardly enough, in my mind, for a fantasy novel.
The characters are fairly stereotypical. You've got Alainn, the peasant girl who suddenly learns of her superior parentage, and the noble youth, Killian, who's willing to throw away everything to be with the woman he loves. (Very King Edward VIII!) Surrounding them are the overbearing father, Hugh O'Brien, and the practically invisible Lady Siobhan. Morag is a grumpy old woman, and the castle cook--called, usefully, Cook--is fat and jolly.
One of the O'Brien twins is warrior material, whilst the other is a scholar.
And if we get right down to the nitty-gritty basics... I stumbled over sentences that made no sense, several cases of poor grammar, and an idiosyncratic use of commas.
There are more books in this series--eight in all, if I recall correctly--but I'm not likely to go looking for them. Your mileage may vary, of course. If you like romance with a dash of history and a pinch of magic, well, this may be for you. It just wasn't my cup of tea.
kkarinh's review against another edition
2.0
**There will be spoilers.** Stop now if you want some ignorance of plot. Some I have approporiately hidden behind spoiler tags, others I couldn't avoid talking about in my discussion.
Based on the summary, I thought this would be a great book for me. I was looking for some celtic historical fiction with magic thrown in, and thats what the description promised.
What I got, felt like a rough draft of a not fully thought out story. There were elements strewn about that I liked in concept, but the execution was poor.
Characters
Lets start with the characters themselves. Alainn is introduced initially around the age of eight, from what I can tell. But then we are thrust 10 years forward into the present. Should should be about eighteen, I think. Ages aren't specifically discussed. I'm basing this off Killian's discussion of first having 'dreams' about her and how they were inappropriate because he was only 13, and she was 5 years his younger. So, I'm guessing 8, 8 + 10 = 18.
Given she's an eighteen year old, her actions and emotions often felt very childlike. She would be bullheaded, stubborn and out spoken in one scene, only to be crying over mild insults in the next. It made her a hard character to like. I just couldn't relate to the vast change in mental states. If you have a strong female character, then she should be strong, not randomly devolving into crying fits. It just didn't make sense.
Killian, also felt a little out of place. He was strangely obsessed with and over protective of Alainn, yet had no problem bedding many other women. Their romance also felt... too good to be true, a bit contrived. Why was Alainn allowed into so much of the noble's day-to-day if she was truly a servant? The rationale was flimsy. It made Killian's attachments easier to believe, but at the same time, the objections to their romanace seemed flimsier. She was already half into the noble circle, why would they care?
Finally Hugh O'Brien's surprise descent.During one scene we spend in his head, we are introduced to a rational, feeling man who cares deeply for his family and the future of his chieftainship through his two sons. He also remembers, though he protested, how he let Alainn partake in schooling and even some sword training with the boys. How he has a sort of fondness for her, in that she spurred the boys to do better so that no girl would surpass them. But at the end of the book, the climax, his character is drastically different, as he tries to rape her in a mad half-thought-out attempt to make Killian spurn her if she has lain with others. And this is not a mild flirtatious attempt, he is violently trying to overpower her, leaving finger marks on her throat and body. There is no lead up to even remotely hint at this dark side. It is revealed, before and during the rape attempt, that he had his sister-in-law killed for straying from her husband, and that he has executed other terrible plots. But this is only revealed at the climax, with again no hint of leadup. It felt, forced. Like we needed a villain and so Hugh O'Brien was going to become that. We barely knew him throughout the story, aside from the chapter we spent in his head near the beginning. He even somehow had never met Alainn (a point he mentions in this climax scene), despite her living in the castle and taking lessons with the boys.
Story Telling
The actual writing itself felt... juvenille. I mentioned it felt like a first draft. The draft where you have the components of the story you want to tell, but it needs to be polished, rearranged, and cleaned up.
The first two chapters were so dialogue heavy that 80% of it was entirely spoken by either Killian or Alainn. I couldn't help but think of the writing addage "Show Don't Tell." The next few chapters suffered similarly from a "Show Don't Tell", but this time focused on the thoughts and memories of characters. We were privy to entire years of events while Alainn reminisced or she read another's mind who was reminiscing (see spoiler above). Very little actual action took place. I would often get lost, as there would be a chapter or two of memories, then suddenly have a piece of dialogue draw us back to the present. I was left trying to remember what had been happening in the present, only to have the next paragraph saunter back down memory lane. It felt very disjointed. A better plot structure would have allowed for some of these events to play out in 'real-time' instead of reflection, or to cut down the amount of focus those reflections received.
Something that grew to bother me as the book went on, was how much the dialogue (especially between Killina and Allain) would include the speakers' names. Real World dialogue rarely says the name of the person you are speaking to in a 1-on-1 conversation. You know who you are talking to, so you don't need to repeatedly include their name. Dialogue in this story seemed to be reminding the reader with each speaker switch in the 1-on-1 who they were talking to. (First spoiler below) In other places, the dialogue got so muddled that I needed to know who was talking. Often one paragraph would include two speakers, one for the first quote and a different for the second, making the speaker switch harder to notice. (Example behind spoiler, with my commentary in [])
[Just keeps saying their names, highlighted in bold]
[Mixing speakers]
The reverse can be said for reminiscing exposition. A paragraph with 3 or 4 male chracters would get lost in pronouns, and I wouldn't know who "he" was. An example below, which 'he' ordered the killing? Hugh or his father? Which 'he' then attempted the deed himself? Its unclear. This poor use of identifiying pronouns littered the expository sections.
Unnecessary Plot Pieces
Part of this book felt like a diatribe against masculinism, partially steeped in the historical reality but also echoing women's treatment today. Alainn had fierce arguments with various of the boys about the rights of men to sleep around, but women are considered whores. How for a woman to marry she must remain virginal and how a woman's lot in life is to be with a man and produce male children. It served to bolster Alainn as a strong female character (you might try to argue), but it also felt very untrue to what a woman in that period would say. Especially when, around adults, Alainn would act the perfect demure woman both verbally and mentally. This relates to the clashing elements of Alainn's written character that made her hard to believe. This could have easily been rewritten to feel more like it was a thought or argument a woman in 16th century Ireland might make, and not a woman in the 21st century would consider making about 16th century practices.
There was a particularly disturbing scene that was also included.It invovled Richard McGilvary, one the side character boys, not of nobility, but sons of the steward. Neither of the McGilvary are good people, but Alainn stumbled upon a scene of Richard torturing a hunting hound with fire, singing its fur and skin while it remained tied to a tree. The scene served to setup Richard as an evil despicable character, and Alainn's involvement in stopping his fun serves to cement his loathing and hatred of her. But beyond that, it felt unnecessary. We heard from Killian later that he also tortured and raped women, yet he received no punishment. What did this torture scene that Alainn witnessed and then intervened in really serve? Was Richard frightened of Alainn after observing and experiencing her powers? No. Did it dissuade him from bullying and attempting to rape her later? No. Considering how he treated all women, I'm not sure his loathing was necessary, as he would have been skeevy and violent toward her regardless. I'm at a loss why a dog torture scene was necessary.
Which brings me to Alainn's abilities. Supposedly, witchcraft is frowned upon due to the Catholic influence in Ireland. She does make an effort to hide her witchy abilities from the priest and villagers, but most either suspect or have witnessed strange things, and yet do not judge her.Richard experiences her power during the dog scene and the later rape scene. During that rape scene, Henry McGilvary and Pierce also see her abilities. Killian was healed by her when they were young. She has healed a mare on the brink of death, twice. She has responded to thoughts she heard but were not spoken, except maybe she reveresed time....? Yea, the allusion to time portals in the fairy glade, as well as the scene in chapter ~3 where she thought she relived a few minutes of time were... Odd things to plop in... Sometimes her abilities were available on demand, other times they came without being bidden, other times they were not to be seen or late to the party... Given she was an extremely powerful witch, I would have appreciated seeing that be more of her day to day, rather than an afterthought or a mention when the exposition required it.
Conclusion
In addition to the flaws listed above, the story really had no discernable plot or action sequence until the last ~20% of the book. And even then, it left off without resolving anything, instead she just... ran away? I have no interest in reading the next book. The writing was poor, the characters conflicting templates, the love story sappy, and the plot... non-existant.
Based on the summary, I thought this would be a great book for me. I was looking for some celtic historical fiction with magic thrown in, and thats what the description promised.
What I got, felt like a rough draft of a not fully thought out story. There were elements strewn about that I liked in concept, but the execution was poor.
Characters
Lets start with the characters themselves. Alainn is introduced initially around the age of eight, from what I can tell. But then we are thrust 10 years forward into the present. Should should be about eighteen, I think. Ages aren't specifically discussed. I'm basing this off Killian's discussion of first having 'dreams' about her and how they were inappropriate because he was only 13, and she was 5 years his younger. So, I'm guessing 8, 8 + 10 = 18.
Given she's an eighteen year old, her actions and emotions often felt very childlike. She would be bullheaded, stubborn and out spoken in one scene, only to be crying over mild insults in the next. It made her a hard character to like. I just couldn't relate to the vast change in mental states. If you have a strong female character, then she should be strong, not randomly devolving into crying fits. It just didn't make sense.
Killian, also felt a little out of place. He was strangely obsessed with and over protective of Alainn, yet had no problem bedding many other women. Their romance also felt... too good to be true, a bit contrived. Why was Alainn allowed into so much of the noble's day-to-day if she was truly a servant? The rationale was flimsy. It made Killian's attachments easier to believe, but at the same time, the objections to their romanace seemed flimsier. She was already half into the noble circle, why would they care?
Finally Hugh O'Brien's surprise descent.
Story Telling
The actual writing itself felt... juvenille. I mentioned it felt like a first draft. The draft where you have the components of the story you want to tell, but it needs to be polished, rearranged, and cleaned up.
The first two chapters were so dialogue heavy that 80% of it was entirely spoken by either Killian or Alainn. I couldn't help but think of the writing addage "Show Don't Tell." The next few chapters suffered similarly from a "Show Don't Tell", but this time focused on the thoughts and memories of characters. We were privy to entire years of events while Alainn reminisced or she read another's mind who was reminiscing (see spoiler above). Very little actual action took place. I would often get lost, as there would be a chapter or two of memories, then suddenly have a piece of dialogue draw us back to the present. I was left trying to remember what had been happening in the present, only to have the next paragraph saunter back down memory lane. It felt very disjointed. A better plot structure would have allowed for some of these events to play out in 'real-time' instead of reflection, or to cut down the amount of focus those reflections received.
Something that grew to bother me as the book went on, was how much the dialogue (especially between Killina and Allain) would include the speakers' names. Real World dialogue rarely says the name of the person you are speaking to in a 1-on-1 conversation. You know who you are talking to, so you don't need to repeatedly include their name. Dialogue in this story seemed to be reminding the reader with each speaker switch in the 1-on-1 who they were talking to. (First spoiler below) In other places, the dialogue got so muddled that I needed to know who was talking. Often one paragraph would include two speakers, one for the first quote and a different for the second, making the speaker switch harder to notice. (Example behind spoiler, with my commentary in [])
“Might we stay here forever, Lainna?” Killian murmured against her wet hair. “To live out our days, you and I, in peace. No one to interfere with our love. No reason to be concerned that we may be parted.”
“Aye, it would be heavenly. But, you would tire of it, Killian. For, you’d be distanced from your cousins and your uncle, and all that you hold dear in your heart.”
“’Tis you who makes my heart sing, Alainn. I believe I could spend eternity with you here in this magical place.”
“You’d miss the soldiering and the hunting, for the fairies do not take kindly to weapons in their realm. And, you would miss the contact of male companionship.”
“Ah, but perhaps we’d have a son. Surely, the curse couldn’t touch us in this beautiful glade. If the witch cannot even enter, sure her spell cannot reach us here.”
“And, I’ve Morag to think of, Killian. I must be with her when she passes, and there is the matter of your chieftainship to be considered.”
She swam across the spring and dove beneath the waterfall. He joined her and, for the moment, they simply delighted in the water, the warmth, and their time together, splashing each other and acting as children. After a time, Alainn moved away to the shore and lay upon the bank.
“You’ve had enough of this glorious healing water, have you, Lainna?”
“Aye, my fingers are puckered from the length of time I’ve been in the spring.”
[Mara speaking]
Mara dared to sit upon the rock beside Alainn as she spoke. “Are you well, Alainn? What has come over you?”
[Alainn speaking]
“Tell me I am not in love with my brother. Tell me that I don’t carry my brother’s child!”
[Mara, then Alainn?]
“You are with child?” Mara gasped. “Answer me!”
[Back to Mara]
“You are not an O’Brien.” Alainn sagged with relief. “What would make you think you are?”
The reverse can be said for reminiscing exposition. A paragraph with 3 or 4 male chracters would get lost in pronouns, and I wouldn't know who "he" was. An example below, which 'he' ordered the killing? Hugh or his father? Which 'he' then attempted the deed himself? Its unclear. This poor use of identifiying pronouns littered the expository sections.
Hugh often wished his father had related the exact wordage of the hex. Though a fearless warrior, Hugh had noticed the unmistakable consternation on his father’s gaunt face when he had broached the subject. He had been completely unwilling to discuss it and had died only weeks after the encounter with the witch. Hugh only knew the O’Briens’ line was to suffer the pain that had been forced upon her. He’d ordered her killed, hoping that would put an end to it, but she was elusive. Even the captain and his guard, the most bold and loyal of soldiers, feared the witch.
Once, he had attempted the deed himself and nearly been killed for his trouble.
Unnecessary Plot Pieces
Part of this book felt like a diatribe against masculinism, partially steeped in the historical reality but also echoing women's treatment today. Alainn had fierce arguments with various of the boys about the rights of men to sleep around, but women are considered whores. How for a woman to marry she must remain virginal and how a woman's lot in life is to be with a man and produce male children. It served to bolster Alainn as a strong female character (you might try to argue), but it also felt very untrue to what a woman in that period would say. Especially when, around adults, Alainn would act the perfect demure woman both verbally and mentally. This relates to the clashing elements of Alainn's written character that made her hard to believe. This could have easily been rewritten to feel more like it was a thought or argument a woman in 16th century Ireland might make, and not a woman in the 21st century would consider making about 16th century practices.
There was a particularly disturbing scene that was also included.
Which brings me to Alainn's abilities. Supposedly, witchcraft is frowned upon due to the Catholic influence in Ireland. She does make an effort to hide her witchy abilities from the priest and villagers, but most either suspect or have witnessed strange things, and yet do not judge her.
Conclusion
In addition to the flaws listed above, the story really had no discernable plot or action sequence until the last ~20% of the book. And even then, it left off without resolving anything, instead she just... ran away? I have no interest in reading the next book. The writing was poor, the characters conflicting templates, the love story sappy, and the plot... non-existant.
marie_thereadingotter's review
emotional
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Review:
http://pagestoexplore.blogspot.com/2017/09/review-farriers-daughter-by-leigh-ann.html
http://pagestoexplore.blogspot.com/2017/09/review-farriers-daughter-by-leigh-ann.html
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