Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Wildwood Dancing

In Wildwood Dancing, Juliet Marillier takes the Grimms' fairy tale of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, subtracts the father/king figure and a few princesses, adds personalities and several plot threads, stirs it up with a healthy dash of magic and drama, and serves up a truly wonderful YA fairy tale.

Wildwood DancingJena and her four sisters live in Transylvania with their loving but seriously ill merchant father and two kind servants.  The sisters wait for their father to journey abroad possibly never to return again, taking solace in their eventful trips to the Otherworld every Full Moon to dance their shoes to scraps and their bodies halfway to exhaustion.  They've traveled to Dancing Glade for years together, but soon choices must be made... Jena tries with all her might to keep the sisters together, watching while one falls into a star-crossed love affair with an other-kin, and the others crack under the pressure of growing up in a world without their father, who may soon be replaced by domineering tyrant of a cousin, Cezar.  Cezar and Jena share a dark past that binds them together, a little too close for comfort.  Will he succeed in taking away all that Jena holds dear to her and her beloved sisters?  Will they have to give up their forays from this world into the Otherworld, and possibly send both to their doom?

This terrific little bargain book(! believe it or not), got from Amazon last week, has been an absolute delight to read.  The five sisters are real, distinct personalities, the plot threads that weave in and out of each other throughout the story are interesting and involving, and the villains are truly terrible!  I was up a few late nights pouring through the pages, relishing Marillier's lyrical prose describing the Otherworld and its kith and kin, and the enchanting story of Jena's ups and downs in dark, mysterious Transylvania.  Now I so want to be a Transylvanian, even more than I did after reading The Historian, especially because this is the better book, IMO.  Fantasy-lovers of all shapes and sizes, don't hesitate on this one, even if you don't particularly consider yourself a YA-enthusiast... because a couple chapters in, you will most definitely become one!  Four pennies for this gem!

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