Foxmask [Paperback]

Juliet Marillier (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan (2003)
• ISBN-10: 0732911834
• ISBN-13: 978-0732911836
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Still a beautiful story..., September 19, 2004

By 

Kseniya Slavsky (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Foxmask: Children of the Light Isles, Book Two (Hardcover)

I loved the first two volumes of the Sevenwaters series. I loved Wolfskin. Of Foxmask, I have the same opinion as I did of Child of the Prophesy - very readable, with well-portrayed characters and a good plot... but it could have been pulled together better.

One mildly disappointing surprise was the slip in the author's treatment of dialogue. I've never known her approach to be less than crisp and poignantly effective. In Foxmask, however, there were instances when a group of exhausted, dirty warriors - good folk, but simple - would be sitting around a fire. Suddenly, one would rise and pronounce a speech fit for podiums and marble halls. Declarations of love, too, seemed somewhat over-dramatized - which shadowed the fact that those scenes really were dramatic and un-trivial. Some of the more significant emotional moments seemed a tad rushed, while some of the inconsequential ones ran a little loose and lengthy.

Nonetheless, the story is still the magical, intriguing, and utterly human tale we have come to expect from this fine writer. It is steeped in history and legend. If our world's mythology had not actually held some of these tales, it very easily could have. Nothing here feels foreign or forbidding.

For those who liked Wolfskin, I will say that the story of Eyvind and Somerled is, indeed, continued and concluded to perfect satisfaction. However, the main focus is on Eyvind's and Nessa's daughter, Creidhe, who follows Margaret's son across the sea, to the Lost Isles, where Somerled might, or might not, have ended his journey. There is quite a complicated web, here, of friendship, abandonment, mislaid trust, dangerous assumptions, ambition, and love. It is impossible to predict, from the first, the pattern of the story. Like life, it takes wholly un-looked-for twists. Because of that, the books is quite difficult to put down until you've turned the last page. I do recommend it, highly.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars fresh medieval Nordic world tale, August 3, 2004

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Foxmask: Children of the Light Isles, Book Two (Hardcover)

At the top of the world, Norseman Eyvind met and married local Celtic seer Princess Nessa, but the couple and their loyal followers had to struggle to survive the betrayal of his best friend Somerled (see WOLFSKIN). Several years have passed since Somerled was exiled.

Widow Margaret raised her son Thorvald. He learns that his biological father was not his mother's deceased husband, but instead is the traitor Somerled. Needing to learn more about his patriarchal heritage, Thorvald goes on a quest to find his sire while wondering if he might be a murderous chip off the old block.

Sam the fisherman takes him to look for his father, but at sea both are shocked to find a stowaway, the daughter of Eyvind and Nessa, Creidhe, who loves Thorvald. When they are shipwrecked on an island beyond the known world, Asgrim, leader of the Seal People, provides hospitality to the trio. The tribe has terrible troubles as a malevolent force is killing their newborns. Everyone feels Asgrim's son caused the curse when he kidnapped the prophet the Foxmask. Believing that Asgrim is Somerled, Thorvald joins their cause not knowing what the islanders plan to do to Creidhe.

This sequel starts fast with the sea voyage, decelerates to introduce several subplots on the island of the Seal People, but then picks up speed when the various storylines converge. Thorvald is an intriguing soul struggling to find his identity. Creidhe is his key causing Thorvald to choose between his father and the young woman he loves. By moving to another locale, introducing a new tribe and the next generation, Juliet Marillier furbishes a fresh tale in her medieval Nordic world.

Harriet Klausner

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars (4.5 stars) In terms of the story it's great-but not my favorite of her books, September 26, 2006

By 

Lilly Flora "by Lilo Drandoff" (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Foxmask: Children of the Light Isles, Book Two (Hardcover)

"Foxmask" is the last of the duology that Juliet Marillier wrote concerning the mixing of the roaming Saxon warriors and a race of island people known only as the folk. The first book "Wolfskin" was about a warrior named Eyvind who found out that telling the truth and being faithful to the ideal of truth was more important than blind faith in those you trusted. In that book Eyvind ended up with a young priestess of the folk named Nessa, and in the end cast out his blood brother Somerled, who had turned the islands into a blood bath of war between the two races, to the sea to meet his fate.

But Somerled left something behind-a child growing in the belly of his brother's widow, who had loved him, but had known that he was selfish and somewhat evil. This child grew up to be called Thorvald. Around his 18th birthday his mother gives him a letter Somerled wrote to her upon his exile to the seas, and Thorvald, feeling cursed by the horrible acts his father committed, heads out on a boat to find him, thinking he may have found far off islands to live on.

But with him on the boat sneaks Creidhe, Eyvind and Nessa's daughter who has loved Thorvald forever, though she knows he isn't perfect. The two, along with Sam (who owns the boat) land upon strange islands, which are devoid of children, and all the men take place in a yearly hunt to find a child who is the only salvation they could ever have from the forces ruining their lives. But this child id protected by a valiant keeper. Thorvald thinks his father is the ruthless leader of the island people, but he can't be sure, and while he works to impress the man who may be his sire Creidhe is about to find out exactly what is the truth in the strange world she stumbled into...

This isn't my favorite of Marillier's books, but in terms of technical storytelling it may be her best work yet. The writing is haunting, the suspense is well played out, and the ending is something you would never see coming. I enjoyed this, and it made me want to read more of the author's works.

Four point five stars.