The Well of Tears

The Crowthistle Chronicles #2

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

The beautiful maiden Jewel is the center of her parent's joy. She is the embodiment of their true love and she has grown up surrounded by peace and love in abundance.

Jewel's world cruelly shatters when her parents are suddenly killed and she and her uncle Eoin are forced to flee. Leaving the only home she has ever known, Jewel learns that her parents, caught in a tangle of a tragic prophecy, had hidden in the marshland for years to protect the secret knowledge that Jewel is the last of the line of the Janus Jaravhor, the dreaded sorcerer of Strang. That she might be the one person in the world who could unlock the mysterious Dome that is told to hold all of Janus's secrets. And that King Maolmordha now knows of her existence and will stop at nothing to find her.

Pain and loss follow and Jewel must make her way alone. Rescued by a traveling band of Weathermasters, exalted magicians who control the heavens for the rich and powerful, she is taken to High Darioneth and is accepted into this tightly knit community.

And not just accepted, but loved, for one of the young weathermasters beheld her and his heart was lost.

Jewel is left with the promise of true love and a powerful secret. But which path will she choose--and who will suffer if she makes the wrong choice?

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, High Fantasy, Romance, Science Fiction Fantasy, Novels, Epic

528 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published November 1, 2005

About the author

Join Cecilia's blog: https://ceciliadartthornton.substack....

Cecilia Dart-Thornton became a full-time writer in 2000 after her work was 'discovered' on the Internet and published by Time Warner (New York).

She is a lifetime member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and has been a judge of the World Fantasy Awards.

Her books are published around the world and have been translated into several languages.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

THE BITTERBYNDE TRILOGY
'This series follows the journey of a mute, amnesiac foundling through a world of beauty and peril, teeming with faerie creatures.'
The Ill-Made Mute (2001)
The Lady of the Sorrows (2002)
The Battle of Evernight (2003)

THE CROWTHISTLE CHRONICLES
'A four-part epic fantasy describing the adventures that befall a cursed and gifted family.'
The Iron Tree (2004)
The Well of Tears (2005)
Weatherwitch (2006)
Fallowblade (2007)

SHORT STORIES
Long the Clouds are Over me Tonight (Published in the anthology Emerald Magic: Great Tales of Irish Fantasy; Tor Books, 2004)
The Stolen Swanmaiden (Published in Australian Women's Weekly September 2005)
The Lanes of Camberwell (Published by Harper Collins in the anthology DREAMING AGAIN, 2008)
The Enchanted (Published by Harper Collins in the anthology LEGENDS OF AUSTRALIAN FANTASY, 2010)

Reviews

[Ruby Hollyberry · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the most boring fantasy novels I ever read. Also the protagonist, Jewel, is a most unattractive personality, spoiled and entitled and insensitive. Blah.

[Chocholic21 · Rating 5 out of 5]

i really enjoyed this book - it brought tears to my eyes
sweet romance with a twist
couldn't put the book down!

[Blodeuedd Finland]

the main characters died in book 1. looked at the end here....weird series. boring too. but i had it

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel like the editors were out to lunch on this one. I think there is an entertaining story to be found at the core of this series, but it gets lost in all the words. There are reams and reams of descriptions and severe thesaurus abuse, to the point where I would forget what was actually happening in the narrative. Unless it is a key element of the plot (it's not), there is no need so spend over four pages describing the colour, fabric, weave, etc., of a side-character's outfit (or, worse, the outfits of every character in that scene). In the end, I gave up and skipped things. This reads like a first-draft nanowrimo novel, where you over-describe everything just to hit your daily word count.

My other quibble there wasn't enough focus on characterisation for any of the key characters, to the point where they felt like archetypes rather than real people. There were lengthy descriptions of the heroine’s beauty on every other page, ad nauseum, delivered in the most florid prose. Again, some really lazy editing here.

That said, the world-building is great and there is solid research behind this series. I loved the incorporation of various fairytales and folklore into the story. The narrative arc is shaped like that of a verse saga or a myth, which seems deliberate. I think, had this series been *severely* pared down to about half or even a third of the length for each book (with books 3 and 4 being made into one), this would have been much better and much more engaging.

(All of the above applies to the other three books in this series, as well.)

[Meghan · Rating 2 out of 5]

ok heres the thing...it took until page 444 for them to find the "well of tears" and once they find it, its EMPTY! WTF!! then the main character dies -__- ...after having her funeral and entombed. in 5 pages the author changes her mind and says bc she had an immortal child some of the immortality wore off on her and shes actually just in a deep comma so the husband sets off to find out how to wake her then she writes "his story ends here" aka i dont feel like figuring this one out... so the third book continues with their daughter...the ratings are all over the place for the next one and high for the last one. so i havnt decided if ill finish the series.

[Diana Koenig · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed her descriptions, the wights, the world-building, and mythology, but the characters were a little flat.

[Eva · Rating 2 out of 5]

Once again, a classic fairytale setting with a lot of potential but an unappealing storyline and too-perfect characters. I found this book much the same as the first in the series, except for the plot itself, which was completely different. Aside from this novel picking up precisely where The Iron Tree left off and following the daughter of the two main characters in the previous book, there was barely any correlation between the two books' plots. There is no overarching story for the series and although in some manners this can be interesting, I am not enjoying it at all.
On a positive note though, the characters of this book were more likable than in the previous one, albeit not by much, finally, we had some flaws in our characters making them more relatable, although this was slight and the author still seemed in love with her character's perfection. Also, I found it utterly ridiculous how all the male characters felt the need to protect the main character even though they knew her abilities, it made very little sense.
Although it was overall much the same as the previous book, I did enjoy it a bit more, whether it was the character's flaws or the slightly more engaging storyline I'm not sure.
Despite this though, after finishing this book I am uncertain whether I will pursue the series further or give up, knowing now that each book's narrative has little correlation to its predecessor and having finished the book with a quite anti-climactic ending, I have little motivation to do so.

[MJ Scar · Rating 3 out of 5]

E' un romanzo ricco di idee e avventure, il problema forse è che sono "troppe" e tutte raccontate in modo troppo superficiale. Avrei preferito qualche evento in meno, ma un maggiore approfondimento degli stessi. I personaggi non sono molto ben caratterizzati, o meglio, così come per le avventure, anche i turbamenti dell'animo sono raccontati in modo troppo rapido. (ex non spoiler: immaginate che muoia un personaggio e la protagonista è triste. Fine. Non ci viene detto altro, non c'è una crescita e un'elaborazione del lutto...Si prende atto che è triste per questa morte improvvisa e fine.)
Infine mi ha dato parecchio fastidio come sia stata trattata Jewel. Dovrebbe essere la protagonista, invece non fa assolutamente niente! Arran è il vero protagonista (e ci può stare anche perchè è un bel personaggio...), ma a rigor di logica avrebbe dovuto esserlo Jewel.
Lascio tre stelline perchè comunque le idee sono buone, ma sono rimasta abbastanza delusa.

[_fukurumi_ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Come ho detto già in altre sedi, qui le lacrime sono le mie.
Dio. Che. PALLE.
Sempre lo stesso schema di protagonista-intreccio amoroso-all'inizio si rifiutano ma poi mi mettono insieme-oh, non è proprio un caso che si amino...
Che. Noia.
E poi le descrizioni, interi paragrafi che non aggiungono NULLA alla storia e non servono a NIENTE. Per non parlare di alcune scelte "stilistiche", chiamiamole così, che mi hanno fatto urlare dalla frustrazione verso la fine del libro. "...ma questo non è il momento di raccontare questa storia" e grazie al cazzo, MANCANO CINQUE PAGINE ALLA FINE DEL LIBRO!
Sembra che l'autrice non sappia scrivere una storia davvero profonda e interessante e la infarcisca di avvenimenti mondani che vogliono sembrare utili/interessanti ma che no, non lo sono.

[Charmaine Ohl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually got to enjoy this one alot more than book 1. The wording is still flowery and over descriptive in places but not as much in comparison to the first. The story of Jewel is seemingly better thought out and needs less filler. I now will not dread book 3 as much as I did picking up book 2.

[Marsha Valance · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vowing to love no one, Jewel seeks security by breaking into the impenetrable Dome of Strang. During her quest, she discovers she values true love more than immortality.

[Elbert Alcantara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better than the first book.

[Val · Rating 5 out of 5]

The world building was incredible and I liked how the magic system was based around meteorology.

[Bliss · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am reading this book for the second time now. I love this book, it took me longer to get into it this second time round reading it, but I am still finding myself easily sucked into Jewels world. I still have not read the first book in this chronicles, but I have read the third and never finished the fourth book. (It ended up becoming too predictable for me, I ended up becoming bored and only skimming the pages until I hit something interesting then skipping ahead some more)
Anyway, this book is wonderful. Very descriptive, lots of big words (hey, I was twelve when I first read this, I'm sixteen now) and well developed characters.

This book has been very well researched. In the back pages the references used are supplied. Not many books I've read with this level of fantasy have included the references used. (actually next to none have)

I give this a four out of five stars, the last star being lost due to the books following not hitting the same standards as this one, and the amount of words I hadn't a clue to the meaning of.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm on to the 4th book in this series now, and so far the 2nd, The Well of Tears, was the most difficult to get in to and keep interested in. The characters do a lot of travelling in this book, and everything is a long distance apart, which means there are many long boring travel sequences. It gets to the point where you cringe when they announce they are going on another journey because there goes another half hour where you have to read about the scenery but nothing actually happens. When it finally does get into the story, it is good, and it is worth reading to get into the rest of the series.

[Janyse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay...I tried. This book was fine....but I let the 3rd book in the trilogy sit for 2 months without reading it. That really says something to me. I have heard her other trilogy is fabulous so perhaps I'll try again later....

[Amanda Miao · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this story much better than the first one. I was glad to finally find out more about the weathermages and in truth, their story was faster paced and more interesting than the swamps (although the description of the swamps was nice).

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would say the slowest of this series but still such a wonderful book. Loved the tragic ending too but its so sad when you finish it.

[Cara]

DNF @ 52%.

Long-winded explanations and unnecessary details which greatly affected pacing.

[Talitha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Also a great book! I love the world that Dart-Thornton created.

[Lorien]

i preferred the 1st trilogy.
I m excited to read the new book though, The Midnight Game