21. The Dark Mirror

TBR #21.  The Dark Mirror by Juliet Marillier.

First sentence: “The druid stood in the doorway, as still as a figure carven in dark stone, watching the riders come up the hill under the oaks.”

At the age of nearly five, Bridei, a nobleman’s son, is sent to the house of Broichan, a renowned druid, for his education.  Bridei has a great destiny, though he doesn’t know what it might be, only that his duty is to obey and learn all he can before the time comes.  However, when he finds a foundling on the doorstep on Midwinter, he might be risking the destinies of all by taking in a child, Tuala, who is clearly one of the Good Folk.

…And that’s as far as I read.  A hundred and twenty pages into the five-hundred page novel, Bridei is still twelve and Tuala only six.  I grew impatient to find out what this destiny was and how Tuala might keep him from achieving it, so I began reading fifty pages from the end.  It concluded just as I thought, and I feel as though the time I spent imagining the intervening pages was time a little better spent than actually reading them.

Aside from the excruciatingly slow pace, I actually liked this novel.  It seemed grounded in quite a bit of history, or at least intelligent inference, about the Picts and their society.  I liked especially moments with magical or supernatural occurrences, though these were regrettably overwhelmed by Bridei receiving training, Bridei passing tests, Bridei impressing others with his modesty, intelligence, and skill.

Marillier’s YA fantasy novel, Wildwood Dancing, benefits from her smooth writing and excellent research–and also from being two hundred and fifty pages shorter than The Dark Mirror.  If I were going to read more Marillier, I would reread Wildwood Dancing before I would continue through the Bridei Chronicles.