I finished reading Child of the Prophecy, the final installment in Juliet Marillier’s Sevenwaters trilogy, yesterday afternoon.
The trilogy follows three generations of the Sevenwaters’s clan, starting with a curse laid on the children of Colum of Sevenwaters by the Lady Oognah, a sorceress descended from a faerie cast out from among the Fair Folk.
Granddaughter to Sorcha and niece to Liadan, Fainne is raised os the shores of Kerry by her father Ciaran, a sorcerer and former druid, and son to the Lady Oognah and Lord Colum. Raised in near isolation, Fainne’s one true friend is the tinker’s son, Darragh, a boy with an uncanny ability to tame wild creatures. Fainne lives in relative peace with her father, accustomed to the solitude that marks their life, until the Lady Oognah seeks her out to complete her long-sought vengeance on the people of Sevenwaters. Fainne finds that her grandmother possesses a kind of cruelty that she never anticipated. Forced to act against her better judgment, Fainne must overcome the sorceress’ malice before she too is consumed by it.
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While I did not enjoy Child of the Prophecy as much as Daughter of the Forest or Son of the Shadows, the experience would have felt incomplete without Fainne’s story. The prophecy that is such an integral part of the trilogy is explained in a satisfying manner, but some of the plot lines seemed too easily resolved (like the matter between Eamonn and Fainne; it builds, disappears for half the book, and is tied together in the final pages).
The Lady Oognah also comes across as one of those classic evil witch types who cackle and wreak havoc, but there is not much depth to her actions. She’s evil, but it seems like her evil has no real motive; the explanation given for her desire to seek vengeance is weak and only made weaker by her continued inability to do more than manipulate her granddaughter into acting on her behalf. She serves her purpose as the witch who curses the children of Sevenwaters in Daughter of the Forest, but she didn’t really work for me as a character in this book.
Tags: books, fantasy, historical fantasy fiction, juliet marillier
I’ve read Daughter of the Forest, the first book in the series, but I haven’t read any more of this series. I enjoyed it, but it took me awhile to get through. Probably because of work and various other things. Thanks for the review!
It took me a while to get through them as well. If you enjoyed the first book, I recommend reading the second in the series.