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Dark Enchantment #1
Blood Dance
Garland is betrothed to Coryn, whose family have been cursed by the early death of their male heirs for generations. She is determined to find out how the curse can be removed. The answer lies in the family's ballroom and with the mysterious standing stones in whose shadow the house stands.
Also published as Heart of Stone.
Also published as Heart of Stone.
102 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
1 person is currently reading
47 people want to read
About the author
Louise Cooper
152 books230 followersLouise Cooper was born in Hertfordshire in 1952. She began writing stories when she was at school to entertain her friends. She hated school so much, in fact—spending most lessons clandestinely writing stories—that she persuaded her parents to let her abandon her education at the age of fifteen and has never regretted it.
She continued to write and her first full-length novel was published when she was only twenty years old. She moved to London in 1975 and worked in publishing before becoming a full-time writer in 1977. Since then she has become a prolific writer of fantasy, renowned for her bestselling Time Master trilogy. She has published more than eighty fantasy and supernatural novels, both for adults and children. She also wrote occasional short stories for anthologies, and has co-written a comedy play that was produced for her local school.
Louise Cooper lived in Cornwall with her husband, Cas Sandall, and their black cat, Simba. She gained a great deal of writing inspiration from the coast and scenery, and her other interests included music, folklore, cooking, gardening and "messing about on the beach." Just to make sure she keeps busy, she was also treasurer of her local Lifeboat station.
Louise passed away suddenly from a brain aneurysm on Tuesday, October 20, 2009. She was a wonderful and talented lady and will be greatly missed.
She continued to write and her first full-length novel was published when she was only twenty years old. She moved to London in 1975 and worked in publishing before becoming a full-time writer in 1977. Since then she has become a prolific writer of fantasy, renowned for her bestselling Time Master trilogy. She has published more than eighty fantasy and supernatural novels, both for adults and children. She also wrote occasional short stories for anthologies, and has co-written a comedy play that was produced for her local school.
Louise Cooper lived in Cornwall with her husband, Cas Sandall, and their black cat, Simba. She gained a great deal of writing inspiration from the coast and scenery, and her other interests included music, folklore, cooking, gardening and "messing about on the beach." Just to make sure she keeps busy, she was also treasurer of her local Lifeboat station.
Louise passed away suddenly from a brain aneurysm on Tuesday, October 20, 2009. She was a wonderful and talented lady and will be greatly missed.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 24, 2015
I probably should say before I start, that if this series of books was ever released in one (or two) volume(s) as a short story collection, I'd likely give it five stars.
Back in the mid-Nineties, before Harry Potter and Malorie Blackman made it cool for teenagers to read whopping great bricks of literature, teenage books were simply-written, slim volumes like the Dark Enchantment series that you picked up for a couple of pounds. It is a limited series (ten or twelve unconnected books, aside from two that go together) and not a well-known one; even in England at the time of publication these were not easily found.
At 101 pages (and fairly large print at that) Blood Dance is really more of a (long) short story than a full book, and it reads as such. As with any short story, it's not as fully-formed as a novel would be: the plotline is lighter, the characters less developed. This is a tale of a girl who needs to break a curse on the boy she loves. It's that simple. No side plots, few supporting characters.
Yet for all that, it is quite a charming read. One of the things I enjoy most about the Dark Enchantment series is the ambiguity; all but a few of the books are set in unknown lands, in unknown times, and Louise Cooper is probably the best of the series' authors at creating stories with a sense of mystery and magic that makes the most of the unknown. In some strange way, the short length of the books acts as a positive rather than a negative; where a longer book with more character development might feel plodding and overdone, this format allows Cooper - among others - to tell stories that are less like written novels and more like the tales that you spin around a campfire on a summer evening. The Louise Cooper books - Blood Dance, Firespell, The Shrouded Mirror and The Hounds of Winter (that last one I am not fond of) read almost like folk stories, things that have been passed down through the generations and only now written down.
Don't come to these books expecting great teen novels, or ready to judge them by 21st Century standards - they're so different as to be incomparable. If you're hoping to see Louise Cooper's skills as a novelist, I suggest the Daughter of Storms trilogy. Instead, approach these tales with the mindset that you would have for a dance in a woodland clearing on Midsummer's Night, because that is what they feel like - magical, wild, and all the sweeter for their brevity.
Back in the mid-Nineties, before Harry Potter and Malorie Blackman made it cool for teenagers to read whopping great bricks of literature, teenage books were simply-written, slim volumes like the Dark Enchantment series that you picked up for a couple of pounds. It is a limited series (ten or twelve unconnected books, aside from two that go together) and not a well-known one; even in England at the time of publication these were not easily found.
At 101 pages (and fairly large print at that) Blood Dance is really more of a (long) short story than a full book, and it reads as such. As with any short story, it's not as fully-formed as a novel would be: the plotline is lighter, the characters less developed. This is a tale of a girl who needs to break a curse on the boy she loves. It's that simple. No side plots, few supporting characters.
Yet for all that, it is quite a charming read. One of the things I enjoy most about the Dark Enchantment series is the ambiguity; all but a few of the books are set in unknown lands, in unknown times, and Louise Cooper is probably the best of the series' authors at creating stories with a sense of mystery and magic that makes the most of the unknown. In some strange way, the short length of the books acts as a positive rather than a negative; where a longer book with more character development might feel plodding and overdone, this format allows Cooper - among others - to tell stories that are less like written novels and more like the tales that you spin around a campfire on a summer evening. The Louise Cooper books - Blood Dance, Firespell, The Shrouded Mirror and The Hounds of Winter (that last one I am not fond of) read almost like folk stories, things that have been passed down through the generations and only now written down.
Don't come to these books expecting great teen novels, or ready to judge them by 21st Century standards - they're so different as to be incomparable. If you're hoping to see Louise Cooper's skills as a novelist, I suggest the Daughter of Storms trilogy. Instead, approach these tales with the mindset that you would have for a dance in a woodland clearing on Midsummer's Night, because that is what they feel like - magical, wild, and all the sweeter for their brevity.
October 30, 2017
Such a sweet beautiful love story, the story is short but it is enchanting and I love the legend of the Blood Moon. Garland and Coryn are so cute I’m glad there was a happy ending
December 15, 2025
Pure nostalgia- I hunted this book down after spotting a similar series from this era on social media. I would have scored this 5 stars if you’d asked pre-teen me after borrowing it from the library and feeling like I’d hit the jackpot. I don’t recommend coming to this book without a lot of indulgence for the time; kids literature in the early 90s was a very different scene.
March 1, 2010
Garland and Coryn grew up in the same village. Although two years apart in age, the two were close childhood friends, and Garland loved Coryn from the first time she met him. Her dream comes true when she is thirteen, and Coryn tells her he loves her, too. Two years later, they are betrothed, and it is the happiest day of Garland's life, knowing that they will be married in a few years. But her happiness is shattered when Garland learns that Coryn's family is under a terrible curse. All the men of the family have died young. If Garland doesn't find a way to save him, Coryn will be next. Will Garland's love for Coryn be enough in her search to find the secret to breaking the curse? I highly recommend this book to teens who enjoy supernatural romances. Garland is an appealing character who readers will cheer on in her quest to save her beloved, and the story is very suspenseful.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews