Customer Reviews

The Well of Shades (Bridei Chronicles)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Juliet Marillier's The Well of Shades combines poetic writing with strong character development in this third installment of the Bridei Chronicles. The two main characters, Faolan and Eile, are among the most realistic characters Juliet has ever portrayed. Both of these characters share tragic pasts, but with the help of each other, work to overcome them. Juliet Marillier did an excellent job at interweaving multiple storylines in this novel without neglecting any characters or plots. As always, the historic setting of Marillier's work draws readers in to a new world, filled with love, war, earthly spirits, magic and transformation- in both body and soul. Readers of the previous two books will be amazed at the heart warming development of Faolan and Broichan.

This is by far Juliet Marillier's best book yet (And all of her books are worth 5 stars), but new readers should be advised to at least read Blade of Fortriu first.

Juliet Marillier's written another winner in her third installment of the Bridei Chronicles.

"The Well of Shades" takes place almost immediately after the second book ("Blade of Fortriu") ends. A heartbroken Faolan returns to his homeland to complete an intelligence mission for Bridei, while also confronting the ghosts of his past. A side quest to inform Deord's family of his death brings Deord's daughter, Eile, into his life. Already open to his emotions (a result of his friendship with Ana from Book Two), his relationship with Eile helps him learn to heal and to love.

Book Three continues to focus on Faolan's road to rediscovery and learning how to feel again. Providing a fascinating backdrop is Bridei's leading Fortriu in a tenuous peace shortly after a great war (Book Two) and in the face of a rapidly changing political climate. A smaller side plot involves Broichan coming to terms with his past and a devious schemer from the Light Isles.

Overshadowing all the events is Bridei's concern that he has offended the Nameless God by not continuing the human sacrifice ceremony at the Well of Shades. But the Well and the ritual itself are just a reflection of the characters' need to come to terms with their past.

While the first two books focus more on the actions of the characters, Book Three really delves into the underlying motivations of the people of Fortriu. We learn more about the characters as their carefully constructed worlds fall apart and they learn to deal with that. Gripping and emotionally intense, this book (and series) is highly recommended.

I am surprised at how much The Well of Shades moved me. It is an emotional, intimate portrait of two people connecting despite of, and perhaps because of, their tragic pasts. Faolan and Eile feel like authentic and honest characters, complete with flaws, and their journey, both inward and outward, is the highlight of the novel. Everything else--the historical elements, magic, political intrigue, spiritual conflict--are incidental to their story.

In my opinion, a good novel illustrates how characters grow as events unfold. In The Well of Shades, Marillier presents two characters who undergo life-altering changes. Faolan and Eile are well-developed and emotionally complex. In particular, Eile feels like a real person who has suffered horror. Marillier does not sugar-coat her feelings. At times, Eile displays shame, guilt, confusion, and distrust over what happened to her. This whirlwind of emotions always feels natural.

As in The Dark Mirror, Marillier makes us care for her primary characters, but in this novel the effect is even greater because Faolan's and Eile's conflicts are more personal. Although I quite liked The Dark Mirror, I question if it is the appropriate beginning to this saga. The series is called The Bridei Chronicles, but I think that Faolan is the human soul of the trilogy. His character has the longest and hardest journey, both physically and emotionally. On one hand, I wonder how the series would have felt if he had been the main character in the first volume, not Bridei. On the other hand, there is a correlation between Bridei's and Faolan's tales. Without Bridei's example in the first volume, Faolan would never conquer his past in the subsequent volumes.

As I noted in the other volumes, I think that Marillier's weakness is creating believable antagonists. Her villains never seem to have justifiable reasons for their heinous actions. I believe that this novel does not require a villain. The relationship between Faolan and Eile provides enough drama.

The Well of Shades is the best book in the series.

Fans of the series are likely to be well pleased with _The Well of Shades_. The most recent installment in Marillier's Bridei Chronicles is satisfying and uplifting. It's a story of growth and renewal; in it winter turns to spring, intolerance into tolerance, rejection into acceptance . . . and love conquers all. The ending is, perhaps, the happiest of any of her previous novels--things resolve not only for Faolan but for many other beloved characters too.

The new characters are well drawn, including the villains. Interestingly, three of the most important new faces are womens', and all three have endured isolation and abuse. Two dedicate themselves to the acquisition of power; one is quite sociopathic, while the other seems more like a Machiavellian prince--amoral, but practical. The third, Eile, overcomes her circumstances in ways that will have the reader cheering.

Overall this is an enjoyable read, but the book did have its flaws. The first half of the story was rushed. Faolan's homecoming happens offstage, which is maddening after so much foreshadowing. Eile's rescue of Faolan, which is a turning point in their relationship, is barely sketched out--told rather than shown. It ought to have been a scene to savor; instead it's over before it begins. In other places she has Faolan using whole paragraphs to describe, quite rationally, his psychological growth. It wouldn't sound convincing coming from anyone, really, but especially not the damaged assassin who has only begun to accept that he has feelings in the first place.

Fortunately, these problems resolve by the middle of the novel. The latter half is well-paced and engrossing, and though we see the resolution coming miles away, there are enough twists and dangers to keep the journey enjoyable. By the end, you won't care a jot about the mishandled scenes at the beginning. And Marillier is so good at character and plot that it almost doesn't matter. If I were commenting on the hardback edition, I'd give this a solid four stars.

However, the Kindle edition leaves a lot to be desired. It looks like a pdf of the original book, which is fine insofar as we get a nice typeface and what was, originally, a professional layout. I miss those things when I read Kindle books. THIS edition, though, was inexcusably sloppy: ink blots, slanting lines, misplaced lines, in other words, a mess. It's obvious no one proofed this. Unless desperate for reading material on your long foreign trip, I'd buy a paper copy instead.

Marillier is back on track with her Chronicles here. She brings in new characters, develops changes in old ones, twines them together, sprikles on some passion dust, and viola! Who would not be enchanted once again? It's like I've always said about her, she tells this story, and for myself, I feel like an adult version of the child Saraid in this novel, I want that over and over. I find this story and the setting deeply satisfying. I will say the time she portrays to me always feels historically somewhat later than what she is writing about, but I do not care, she does what she does better than almost anyone writing this sort of fantasy. I'm thinking she's got enough started here with the next generation to be able to arc this story through more time yet, and I certainly hope she does just that.

I was apprehensive about starting this trilogy because of the peer reviews saying that the Bridei trilogy isn't nearly as good as the Sevenwaters Series. Because of this, I put off reading the Bridei Chronicles. I wish I hadn't!! After reading the first two books in the trilogy I was pleasantly surprised and quickly dove into Marillier's last book in the series. I was blown away by "Well of Shades": its three-dimensional characters, surprising and gripping internal conflicts, emotions and motives not to mention its complex plot prove up to Marillier standard. The previous two books in the Bridei Chronicles were good, but I found the hero/heroine rather annoying: too perfect and two dimensional in characterization. However, the two main characters in "The Well of Shades" are not only my favorite characters in the Bridei Chronicles but in all of Juliet Marillier's books: they have strengths and weaknesses, hopes and fears, and because of that, you come to care for their well-being. It takes talent for an author to create characters who you feel emotionally invested in. But Juliet Marillier does it. I would easily put this book as one of Juliet Marillier's finest works. Read it. You'll be glad you did.

The Well of Shades begins right where Blade of Fortriu left off; those who haven't read its predecessor should start there. Stylistically, it's much like Blade of Fortriu, and it's a good, entertaining read. There's a new central character, though: Eile the impoverished, angry teenage mother. I never really warmed up to Eile, which partially explains why I was less than delighted with this book. The first two books in this series followed basically the same people, but here our #1 viewpoint character is a girl we've never heard of, whose #1 priority is her 3-year-old child... whom we've also never heard of. Admirable as her devotion to her daughter is, and interesting as it is to see King Bridei's court through the eyes of an outsider (who... doesn't even speak the language...), I was irritated that the focus on Eile & Saraid was at the expense of characters I already cared about. That said, Eile's character development is extremely well-done; no one can say Marillier is afraid to delve into the psychology of battered women, even when the results aren't pretty.

As for the rest of the book....

What I Liked:

Like Blade of Fortriu, The Well of Shades follows several different characters over their own personal story arcs; it does so well, and Marillier handles difficult points of view (Breda, Brother Suibne) skillfully.
There was actually a villainous character with understandable motives... okay, the Widow is hardly the major villain here, but she's a nice break from the random practitioners of mindless cruelty that we see elsewhere. I had some sympathy for her.
There are a handful of little, true-to-life moments that just made me smile, like Eile practicing her Gaelic by discussing the weather with the king's bodyguards and her hilarious conversation with Conor when he still thinks Faolan is a bard.
And there are some great minor characters. Would have liked to see more of many of them (Ferada, the teenage Bedo and Uric, Conor, Liobhan...).

What Disappointed:

Anyone who's read the Sevenwaters trilogy knows that Marillier is a genius when it comes to writing about families. You find yourself caring about the main characters' relationships with their parents, siblings, uncles, etc. But bizarrely, aside from main characters' relations with their spouses and/or young children, she seems to be avoiding families here. People's reunions with long-lost relatives happen off-stage and leave much to be desired; even Tuala and Broichan's surprising relationship isn't really dealt with on a practical level.
And then there's Faolan's character. Why change what was so good? He was interesting in the first two books, but by the end of this one might as well have changed his name, since he was unrecognizable. It seems like the same end could have been achieved while staying a little more true to character.
There's a plot device one writer I admire calls the "Cliff of Justice", where the set intervenes and kills the villain (i.e. he fortuitously falls off a cliff) at the key moment in order to save the hero from moral quandary. It is always a cop-out; this book is no exception.

Of course, if you read #2, you'll probably read this one no matter what anyone says, and don't get me wrong, it's a well-written book. For me, though, it lacked the emotional resonance of some of Marillier's other work, which was disappointing.

Book III of the Bridei Chronicles from Juliet Marillier begins with the trusted bodyguard/assassin of White Hill--Faolan--already well on his journey into the land of the Gaels to reconcile with the family he fled more than a decade before, to carry a dead friend's final words to the next of kin, and to spy on the Christian leaders in that region for Bridei, the king of Fortriu. On the back cover of the novel, a marketing person has described the young lady that Faolan finds at his friend's "home" while on his threefold mission as "the lovely young woman Eile, whose beauty shines forth despite her tragic circumstances." I won't deny that Eile's circumstances are tragic, and the actions she takes to free herself of them gave her some worth in my eyes, but I never grew to like the snappish, churlish girl. I ended up rooting for her for Faolan's sake, as many of the characters do. Despite Eile's unlikeability (for me), this novel sang with both familiar and new characters to Bridei's main storyline.

As I hint here, the May-December romance between the sixteen-year-old Eile and her father's friend Faolan is only one plotline that develops along the path to another plotline in The Well of Shades. Faolan gathers information for King Bridei while out and about, and brings back news of a Christian missionary's movements and influence. What readers may find most intriguing about this storyline is its foundation in historical fact. As with her first two novels in the series, Marillier pulls from the sparse history of the picts, weaving a fiction story among the bits of facts researchers know and "good guesses" scholars and writers can make. She mixes in a worried druid in search of answers and absolution; a toddler mage with powers neither he nor his parents truly know how to control; a devious, bored princess; and some settings in juxtaposition to each other (such as Eile's experience with the "noble" lady, Aine, at Blackthorn Rise in contrast to her experience with the queen, Tuala, at White Hill). What Marillier ends up with is a tale with many layers that feed into one another wonderfully. As with her first two novels in the series, her descriptions may seem tedious at times, but they give a reader a very deep feel for nuances of the world these characters live in. Something I did not notice in the first two novels, but found distracting in The Well of Shades, was Marillier's use of repetition. She reviewed material often enough that it stood out to me. It reminded me of later Terry Goodkind narratives.

Overall I enjoyed The Well of Shades immensely and was pleased with the way Marillier brought families together, tied up the story of Tuala and her parentage, gave insidious characters their due, etc., but I feel I must give new readers a warning. While the relationship between Tuala and Bridei bordered on "unease" for me at first due to their close upbringing as almost brother and sister, it is something the reader can get past pretty easily. But in this third novel, the underlying theme of incest nagged at the back of my mind. Sensitive readers may be uncomfortable if they can't get past a sixteen-year-old girl being abused by her uncle, Bridei and Tuala having a second child, or Tuala sharing/reliving with her father a vision in which he performs the sexual act in which she was conceived. While none of the sex scenes in this novel are explicit, the "unconventional" ones could turn off sensitive readers. I would like to point out that Marillier's use of them is sparse and essential to the plot(s). Fantasy readers should be so delighted with her world and her fiction that the minor discomfort, if noticed at all, will be shortlived.

From Sandy Lender, "Some days, you just want the dragon to win."

Juliet Marillier is a master story teller. Her knowledge of the old religion lends believability to this series. I went and purchased every one of her books after reading this series.

The Bridei Chronicles are an acurate description of Ancient knowledge, in this case, Druidic Knowledge. Mrs. Marillier does an Excelente "job" describing it, using vocabulary of the time and simple words to name the "gods" Shining One and Flamekeeper, meaning Aether and Fire, two of the Earth Elementals. The druids had the knowledge of Physics, aquired by earlier generations, dating from the beginning of times,I did some research and those divination runes date back to 17.000 years ago,they were carved on bone and stone in France, and N.Portugal carved on a megalith. The writer writes Precise facts with an incredible kinda "magic" and intuition, like she was there. I do recomend her books to everyone, but not everyone is up to that reading.