Customer Reviews

The Well of Tears: Book Two of The Crowthistle Chronicles

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I am a huge fan of CDT, but this book is just STUPID. You really see how much trouble she has with plotting in this sequel that fails for so many reasons.

I love the way she weaves all the fantasy into the story, but the plot here is so boring and has all been done before, ie the search for the fountain of youth...PLEASE!

Characters come and go and we are left with the god-like Jewel with her saphire eyes and some other guy who's name escapes me. I could not get interested in their travels or care much really for either of them as they were impervious to harm and seemingly invincible. Other characters were so insignificant they are just little blips in the story and you end up getting confused with who is who and why they are there and what's the point and so on.

I just had to stop reading it as i was bored to tears. I love her detailed descriptions of things, but this time it just annoyed me and i was skimming over them to hurry up and see if there would be some sort of plot at the end of them.

Maybe it would have got better, but after about 350 pages of nothing much happening at all I realise i'm glad i just borrowed this one rather than buying it.

I'm intrigued that anyone could get to the end of this book. I'm at page 91 and haven't read a book this boring in many many years. The writing is far too descriptive and wordy and a plot is difficult, if not impossible, to find. The writer constantly repeats the underlying background, the heroine (if that is what she should be called) is bland. I have been able to develop no feeling for her at all, in fact, I wish she and not her uncle had been taken by the unseelies. The authors overuse of the word like made me skip many sections of the text and remember, I've only read 91 pages. I'm not likely to finish or if I do I suspect page after page will be skipped. All in all the book seems to be about a young girl with no personality and who cannot be injured, looking for her roots. Her lack of personality makes you not want to care about her, and her invulnerability removes any tension that should be built from the unseelies and other not-so-nice characters. Don't waste your money on this one.

instead of buying it! I re-read parts of Book One, The Iron Tree, so I would be "up to date" on this sequel. I must admit that I didn't like the main character, Jewel, at all. I don't see why whatshisname (the guy that married her) liked her either. The book began to drag when they started their journeying together, and I must admit I started out skipping pages, then whole chapters, then all the way to the end to at least see how it turned out. I didn't feel any of the fascination that I had with The Iron Tree.

Of course with all that skipping I may have missed something vital that could have resulted in a better feeling about the book.

In Slievmordhu, Jewel lives a wonderful life showered with love from her family until King Maolmordha's troopers kill her parents. Unbeknownst to Jewel, her savior, Step-Uncle Eoin feels remorse for causing this tragedy all because he was jealous of her father Jarred for being married to the woman he loved Lilith. Knowing he placed his beloved niece in danger, Eoin takes her on a perilous journey through the Great Marsh praying he can get her to safety in the nearby kingdom of Narngalis. He has yet to tell her that he revealed to the king's minion that she and her father were the last descendents of the feared sorcerer Janus, making her a pawn to open the Dome of Strang where the wizard's powerful secrets lie.

Eleven days looking over their shoulders, the wayfarers struggle until they clear the marsh. However, deadly unseelie wights capture Eoin. Jewel seeks refuge at High Darioneth where she meets the weathermasters and the Storm Lord Avalloc Maelstronnar-Stormbringer. She soon learns that Eoin is dead and finds solace with the people of High Darioneth until she learns that no one guards the Dome of Strang so decides it is time to learn about her roots.

THE WELL OF TEARS, the second entry in the Crowthistle Chronicles (see THE IRON TREE starring Jarred and Lilith), is a fabulous coming of age fantasy starring a wonderful heroine whose world is destroyed by the betrayal of a loved one. Eoin is an intriguing character though his time in the tale is short as the audience feels his ignominy of what he wrought. The story line is character driven with Jewel the focus of a fine fantasy quest to find out what truly flows in her blood.

Harriet Klausner