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The Crowthistle Chronicles #1
The Iron Tree
Jarred is a young boy who has grown up among his mother's peaceful desert people. While Jarred loves his mother, he longs to know the history of his father, a journeyman who left years earlier, promising to return for his wife and infant son. A broken promise but a token left behind--an amulet for Jarred that he has worn always. Some say it brings more than a bit of good luck his way, for no harm has ever befallen the boy.
When Jarred comes to manhood, he decides to journey into the world to seek his fortune and perhaps along the way find news of his father. In his travels he will come to a place so unlike his own as to boggle his mind--a place of immense tracts of waterways and marshes, where the very air seems to teem with magic and a people surrounded by creatures fey and not, with enough strange customs and superstitions to make his head swirl.
And to the beautiful Lilith, a woman who will haunt his dreams and ultimately steal his heart...who perhaps can provide a key to his heritage.
When Jarred comes to manhood, he decides to journey into the world to seek his fortune and perhaps along the way find news of his father. In his travels he will come to a place so unlike his own as to boggle his mind--a place of immense tracts of waterways and marshes, where the very air seems to teem with magic and a people surrounded by creatures fey and not, with enough strange customs and superstitions to make his head swirl.
And to the beautiful Lilith, a woman who will haunt his dreams and ultimately steal his heart...who perhaps can provide a key to his heritage.
448 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
38 people are currently reading
1580 people want to read
About the author
Cecilia Dart-Thornton
39 books409 followersJoin Cecilia's blog: https://ceciliadartthornton.substack....
Cecilia Dart-Thornton was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, graduating from Monash University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology.
She became a schoolteacher before working as an editor, bookseller, illustrator and book designer.
She started and ran her own business, but became a full-time writer in 2000 after her work was 'discovered' on the Internet and published by Time Warner (New York).
A keen supporter of animal rights and wilderness conservation, she also loves clay sculpting, oil painting, and performing in folk music bands.
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)
Cecilia Dart-Thornton was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, graduating from Monash University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology.
She became a schoolteacher before working as an editor, bookseller, illustrator and book designer.
She started and ran her own business, but became a full-time writer in 2000 after her work was 'discovered' on the Internet and published by Time Warner (New York).
A keen supporter of animal rights and wilderness conservation, she also loves clay sculpting, oil painting, and performing in folk music bands.
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)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 83 reviews
June 27, 2007
Not as good as the author's previous trilogy. Her writing is often lovely, and the places she imagines are fascinating. I love detailed world-building, but this book has too much even for my taste. The plot takes a long, long time to get started. It's engaging once it does, but not truly top-notch. Does it make me seem shallow to say that one thing I didn't like about the book is that the lead characters are too pretty? Maybe I should say instead that the author seems too enamored of her protagonists and spends too much time rhapsodizing about how wonderful they are and too little time making them seem like humans the rest of us can relate to. I'll probably read the second book in hopes that it will be more plot-intensive with the build-up out of the way.
February 26, 2018
This is a novel of contrast between the original desert setting and the marshland where it concludes.
The fantasy shows Jarred, a young man from a desert town, who travels with friends to see the world. He meets a lovely girl called Lilith in a marsh environment and the people there come to accept him as one of them.
Lilith is afraid to marry because of a curse on her family. Through a couple of generations now, one of a couple has died early and the other has become paranoid about pursuit by invisible beings. She can't inflict that fate on Jarred and it takes a lot to convince her that Jarred just might be immune.
The language in this book is lovely, with lyrical descriptions of environments from the plants and creatures to the seelie (benevolent) or unseelie (malevolent) wights and brownies who live there alongside the people, kept at bay by charms. The author has delved into British folk history and Irish speech patterns and names for her world.
The only thing that made me hesitate about giving this unusual story top rating is that we do not see more of the environments and peoples on this clearly varied world. However as The Iron Tree is the first in a trilogy the later books must explore the wider reaches, and the end of this one is clearly setting up for such a tale in the second book. I did enjoy the read and it will stay on my keeper shelves while I find the next in the series.
The fantasy shows Jarred, a young man from a desert town, who travels with friends to see the world. He meets a lovely girl called Lilith in a marsh environment and the people there come to accept him as one of them.
Lilith is afraid to marry because of a curse on her family. Through a couple of generations now, one of a couple has died early and the other has become paranoid about pursuit by invisible beings. She can't inflict that fate on Jarred and it takes a lot to convince her that Jarred just might be immune.
The language in this book is lovely, with lyrical descriptions of environments from the plants and creatures to the seelie (benevolent) or unseelie (malevolent) wights and brownies who live there alongside the people, kept at bay by charms. The author has delved into British folk history and Irish speech patterns and names for her world.
The only thing that made me hesitate about giving this unusual story top rating is that we do not see more of the environments and peoples on this clearly varied world. However as The Iron Tree is the first in a trilogy the later books must explore the wider reaches, and the end of this one is clearly setting up for such a tale in the second book. I did enjoy the read and it will stay on my keeper shelves while I find the next in the series.
July 10, 2008
I read a lot of crap, and even I couldn't get past the first five pages. She described a football as crudely-stiched goat skin stuffed with fibrous material... That was the line I stopped at. It was the most pointless description I've ever seen. I found that most of the description was unnecessary and wordy.
April 30, 2010
Fantasy lovers will find rich material in Cecilia Dart-Thornton’s Crowthistle Chronicles. We are thrown into a dense fantasy setting from the start, and what follows is an abundance of imagery and detail rather than too much action.
The storyline itself is fairly simple: a young adventurer goes off to find his father, but is waylaid by a beautiful young woman in a village along the way. They want to marry, but a curse, which must first be resolved, forestalls their happy union. The redeeming realism in their perfect romance is provided by the great sacrifice it ultimately requires.
Overall, fantasy lovers who delight in a rich and detailed story will be rewarded for persevering to the end.
The storyline itself is fairly simple: a young adventurer goes off to find his father, but is waylaid by a beautiful young woman in a village along the way. They want to marry, but a curse, which must first be resolved, forestalls their happy union. The redeeming realism in their perfect romance is provided by the great sacrifice it ultimately requires.
Overall, fantasy lovers who delight in a rich and detailed story will be rewarded for persevering to the end.
January 14, 2010
Dart-Thornton does an amazing job of painting a picture of the beautiful world she created. However, this is not for the impatient reader. She sometimes spends pages just describing the surroundings or a person and this book is basically setting the stage for the next when all of the real action happens.
November 18, 2016
This is an unusual and (in my opinion, at least) beautifully written fantasy novel which I found to be a breath of fresh air in a genre overcrowded with overly fast-paced, action-packed, cliche-ridden travelogue adventures with little truly fantastical or magical about them. The elaborate, description-heavy writing style and sedate pace won't necessarily be to everyone's taste*, but were both big advantages for me.
In terms of the writing style, I consider Dart-Thornton to be virtually the only contemporary author who actually manages to evoke the old-fashioned fairytale/mythic style of early fantasy authors like Tolkien and Eddison. This is something many fantasy authors try and abjectly fail to do, whether because they do it by half measures (resulting in a weird mix of modern and old-fashioned language) or simply because they aren't immersed in old literature the way those early authors were. To actually succeed (at least for me) in pulling off this kind of style is a really impressive achievement. I imagine that the reason Dart-Thornton was able to manage this is that she, like Tolkien, has extensively studied the kind of stories she evokes and draws inspiration from - in this case, old Celtic folk/fairytales, many snippets of and ideas from which are woven through the story.
The actual plot is comparatively simple, allowing more space for worldbuilding and atmosphere while at the same time averting traditional fantasy plot and structure cliches. So we have as our main protagonists a young man with a mysterious background (TM) and the girl he meets in one of the first places he visits when he sets out to seek his fortune with his group of friends. Same old, same old...until, instead of using this as the opening for a long quest narrative with drawn-out romantic tension driven by misunderstandings and external antagonists, the author instead has our hero abandon his journey to settle down and make a living as a hunter near the heroine's home. Opposition to their romance comes from a supernatural curse rather than external forces or idiocy, and isn't drawn out over the entire book (there is technically a love triangle, but the outcome is never really in doubt), as, highly unusually for the lead couple in a fantasy novel, they actually marry and have a child well before the end of the novel, with their daughter becoming an increasingly central character as she grows up**.
This slow-paced, more "domestic" style was, as noted, something I found very refreshing, and went well with the novel's approach to worldbuilding, which builds up the strange magic and fey creatures of the world while staying in one part of it (a wetlands region, quite unusually for a fantasy novel) and developing it to a high degree of detail with beautiful descriptions. Again, this relaxed pacing and development of the world through anecdotes and incidental details, particularly in the middle of the book before the eventual revelations and plot developments kick in, may not be to everyone's tastes, but evokes older, less plot-heavy fantasy.
If I have one criticism of The Iron Tree, it would be that the writing occasionally, usually in more sentimental scenes, tips over from beautiful and evocative into twee, comedic or diabetes-inducing. (Did the central couple have to call their daughter Jewel?) This isn't as pronounced, however, as in Dart-Thornton's other series-opener, The Ill-Made Mute, which goes full Harlequin at times.
Overall, though, this is a beautifully written and refreshingly different kind of fantasy novel, which I would recommend to everyone looking for a change from frenetic "teenage wunderkinds save the world" modern fantasy.
*Hence, I imagine, its woefully low Goodreads average score of 3.4, equivalent to the works of lazy cliche-factory authors like Morgan Rice, which is a travesty.
**And the protagonist of the sequel, which I haven't finished because Google sold me an incorrectly formatted e-book.
In terms of the writing style, I consider Dart-Thornton to be virtually the only contemporary author who actually manages to evoke the old-fashioned fairytale/mythic style of early fantasy authors like Tolkien and Eddison. This is something many fantasy authors try and abjectly fail to do, whether because they do it by half measures (resulting in a weird mix of modern and old-fashioned language) or simply because they aren't immersed in old literature the way those early authors were. To actually succeed (at least for me) in pulling off this kind of style is a really impressive achievement. I imagine that the reason Dart-Thornton was able to manage this is that she, like Tolkien, has extensively studied the kind of stories she evokes and draws inspiration from - in this case, old Celtic folk/fairytales, many snippets of and ideas from which are woven through the story.
The actual plot is comparatively simple, allowing more space for worldbuilding and atmosphere while at the same time averting traditional fantasy plot and structure cliches. So we have as our main protagonists a young man with a mysterious background (TM) and the girl he meets in one of the first places he visits when he sets out to seek his fortune with his group of friends. Same old, same old...until, instead of using this as the opening for a long quest narrative with drawn-out romantic tension driven by misunderstandings and external antagonists, the author instead has our hero abandon his journey to settle down and make a living as a hunter near the heroine's home. Opposition to their romance comes from a supernatural curse rather than external forces or idiocy, and isn't drawn out over the entire book (there is technically a love triangle, but the outcome is never really in doubt), as, highly unusually for the lead couple in a fantasy novel, they actually marry and have a child well before the end of the novel, with their daughter becoming an increasingly central character as she grows up**.
This slow-paced, more "domestic" style was, as noted, something I found very refreshing, and went well with the novel's approach to worldbuilding, which builds up the strange magic and fey creatures of the world while staying in one part of it (a wetlands region, quite unusually for a fantasy novel) and developing it to a high degree of detail with beautiful descriptions. Again, this relaxed pacing and development of the world through anecdotes and incidental details, particularly in the middle of the book before the eventual revelations and plot developments kick in, may not be to everyone's tastes, but evokes older, less plot-heavy fantasy.
If I have one criticism of The Iron Tree, it would be that the writing occasionally, usually in more sentimental scenes, tips over from beautiful and evocative into twee, comedic or diabetes-inducing. (Did the central couple have to call their daughter Jewel?) This isn't as pronounced, however, as in Dart-Thornton's other series-opener, The Ill-Made Mute, which goes full Harlequin at times.
Overall, though, this is a beautifully written and refreshingly different kind of fantasy novel, which I would recommend to everyone looking for a change from frenetic "teenage wunderkinds save the world" modern fantasy.
*Hence, I imagine, its woefully low Goodreads average score of 3.4, equivalent to the works of lazy cliche-factory authors like Morgan Rice, which is a travesty.
**And the protagonist of the sequel, which I haven't finished because Google sold me an incorrectly formatted e-book.
August 24, 2012
I can't really claim it as 'read' - I couldn't get past the first 50 pages. I'm usually fine with writing that's a bit flowery, but this author doesn't seem to be able to use a word of one syllable when she can find one of three or four. And not always suitably. I realise that 'profoundly' does mean 'deeply', but when you're talking about a hole dug in the ground, 'deeply' is just fine thanks.
Also... I'm aware this is a fantasy, fantasy is my preferred genre, but mixing druids with ziggurats and cuneiform? The archaeologist in me rebels. Surely you don't have to borrow language from wildly differing (real-world) cultures? Plenty of fantasy writers create their own terms.
Maybe if I'd given it more of a chance I'd have got in to it, but I'm feeling too impatient at the moment.
Also... I'm aware this is a fantasy, fantasy is my preferred genre, but mixing druids with ziggurats and cuneiform? The archaeologist in me rebels. Surely you don't have to borrow language from wildly differing (real-world) cultures? Plenty of fantasy writers create their own terms.
Maybe if I'd given it more of a chance I'd have got in to it, but I'm feeling too impatient at the moment.
April 26, 2012
This was a lot better than I expected based off the mixed reviews it got. I dont think its an "omg you must read this" book but i did enjoy the story. This book is pretty much setting the background for the rest of the series. It almost reads like a prequel as if she could have gone back and written it after writing the other books in the series but its not its the first in the series. Im torn btw 3 and 4 stars its a high 3 and low 4 really more like 3.5 but i tend to round down so i went with a 3. I do plan to read more from this series and author!
October 20, 2007
Loved the first series by this author, the Bitterbynde trilogy, and thought I would adore this one, but no luck. I rarely do this, but I just couldn't contemplate reading it anymore, and it started giving me the evil eye when I would pass it by holding another book. Bleh. Who knows, maybe I'll pick it up again in a few years and love it. For now, eh.
did-not-finish
August 12, 2025Borrowed a paperback copy from my local library on a whim and just couldn't get into it. Did not finish. Maybe someday I'll try again, but in the meantime, I have other books on my list.
Admittedly, this is for petty reasons. I mean, I like vocab too, but dang, sometimes the simpler word is the right choice! (Paraphrasing, but...) "The boy at the ravine's edge lost his battle for equipoise [...]" GIRL !!!! I know it's a fantasy setting and all, but avoiding the use of perfectly good common words in places where they would work the best doesn't always add to the high-fantasy vibe of the story, and it doesn't make you look like an erudite scholar. Sometimes it just makes the reading overly tedious and pretentious.
Admittedly, this is for petty reasons. I mean, I like vocab too, but dang, sometimes the simpler word is the right choice! (Paraphrasing, but...) "The boy at the ravine's edge lost his battle for equipoise [...]" GIRL !!!! I know it's a fantasy setting and all, but avoiding the use of perfectly good common words in places where they would work the best doesn't always add to the high-fantasy vibe of the story, and it doesn't make you look like an erudite scholar. Sometimes it just makes the reading overly tedious and pretentious.
May 28, 2023
I always love Cecilia's worlds as they are true fantasy but this one just got a bit boring to me as it is mostly a romance and was very slow paced.
March 11, 2009
In a desert land young Jarred lives with his mother. His father left long ago in search of something, or just to hide. And Jarred wants more out of his life so he leaves with a bunch of friends in search of adventure, and to find his father. Instead he find the love of a woman when he meets Lilith who lives in the marches of Slievmordhu. Now he wants to travel no further, instead he wants to win her love.
But she has a suitor, and a terrible curse over her that will make her go insane like her mother one day. But she cannot give up the love she feels for him.
It's hard to review this book since I read the first part 6 months ago and finished it this week. I was honestly not that impressed to continue.
She is a good write, and she creates good stories, countries and such. She puts in a lot of old fairytales and things that we might know, so when a ghost or something shows up we might just know what they are and how to get rid of them. So I do like the marches, and she was a way of writing. It's good romance fantasy.
But then I did turn into a picky reader and this is not the fantasy for me. Nothing happens! They mostly sit in that march and wonder what to do, or we see her jealous suitor, or the marchlife continues.
I do need more things to happen, and the end didn't made me happy either. I even had a sneak peak at the next books ending, which didn't have me happy either. So who knows about the last book then.
Maybe she is trying to hard to put in every single element of fantasy in the book, and the results is just confusing at times. I did get lost if I stopped reading for awhile. There was to much of everything, and too many long boring descriptions. I read that she was compared to Tolkien, and I jsut thought blasphemy! He is not that boring.
And I couldn't connect to Jarred because he was too perfect, and Lilith, plainly boring again. The only one that seemed real was the crazed suitor.
Oh a warning! Read the beginning and you know the end. I hate that.
But if is does seem interesting, than do read it. There are all kinds of fantasy and this wans't my cup of tea.
But she has a suitor, and a terrible curse over her that will make her go insane like her mother one day. But she cannot give up the love she feels for him.
It's hard to review this book since I read the first part 6 months ago and finished it this week. I was honestly not that impressed to continue.
She is a good write, and she creates good stories, countries and such. She puts in a lot of old fairytales and things that we might know, so when a ghost or something shows up we might just know what they are and how to get rid of them. So I do like the marches, and she was a way of writing. It's good romance fantasy.
But then I did turn into a picky reader and this is not the fantasy for me. Nothing happens! They mostly sit in that march and wonder what to do, or we see her jealous suitor, or the marchlife continues.
I do need more things to happen, and the end didn't made me happy either. I even had a sneak peak at the next books ending, which didn't have me happy either. So who knows about the last book then.
Maybe she is trying to hard to put in every single element of fantasy in the book, and the results is just confusing at times. I did get lost if I stopped reading for awhile. There was to much of everything, and too many long boring descriptions. I read that she was compared to Tolkien, and I jsut thought blasphemy! He is not that boring.
And I couldn't connect to Jarred because he was too perfect, and Lilith, plainly boring again. The only one that seemed real was the crazed suitor.
Oh a warning! Read the beginning and you know the end. I hate that.
But if is does seem interesting, than do read it. There are all kinds of fantasy and this wans't my cup of tea.
September 2, 2016
Without doubt one of the worst starts to a series I've ever read - appallingly overwritten, like she swallowed and regurgitated a thesaurus, with one dimensional characters whom we learn precious little of, except that the leads are Very Very Pretty. The story spans some... Fifteen years? And let me tell you, the ten days I spent reading it felt about that long. I was about ready to gouge my eyes out the third time I came across a description of the colour of someone's eyelids and how much they resembled a butterfly - this is a trope I hope to never again encounter, and which makes me wonder how anyone in their right mind can refer to her world- and character-building as "Tolkien-esque". The suggestion that this is anywhere in Tolkien's league is insulting and laughable. More offensive, however, was the unexpected (and entirely unnecessary) transliteration of the Grimnørslanders' accent; I assume it's supposed to invoke the New Zealand accent for Australian and Kiwi readers but as no other accent is indicated by phonetic spelling, it comes across as an infantile, and poorly made, joke.
I remember enjoying CDT's first series a lot (except for the "twist" and subsequent make-it-better retcon right at the end of the third novel), and these have been on my shelf for quite a while, so I was incredibly disappointed to find out how bland this was. I feel no compulsion whatsoever to know what happens in the next three books in the series. The only reason I bothered to finish this one was because I've already abandoned three books this year due to boredom and it's spoiling my 52 book challenge.
One star is being kind. Don't bother.
I remember enjoying CDT's first series a lot (except for the "twist" and subsequent make-it-better retcon right at the end of the third novel), and these have been on my shelf for quite a while, so I was incredibly disappointed to find out how bland this was. I feel no compulsion whatsoever to know what happens in the next three books in the series. The only reason I bothered to finish this one was because I've already abandoned three books this year due to boredom and it's spoiling my 52 book challenge.
One star is being kind. Don't bother.
July 9, 2018
I hate giving negative reviews - mostly because I worry authors read these and NEVER LET RANDOS ON THE INTERNET RAIN ON YOUR DREAMS - but I almost set this one down 3 or 4 times. I relented, but still that was hard to finish, which hurt because it had some things going for it. Great fantasy world building. It drew kind of randomly from many sources of folklore, but the plot was basically good and the backdrop was cool as hell. Problems for me were (a) waiting for the plot to actually occur was akin to watching paint dry, and (b) we endlessly talked about characters without actually feeling like we got to know them. This was one of the slowest and needlessly descriptive books I’ve ever read. Pages of useless information. I’ve heard so much about this author, I’m really bummed it didn’t work for me.
December 16, 2008
I gave this book 108 pages and I would like to have that time back so I can better spend it elsewhere. The first 2 pages should have been an indication to me not to bother and I wish I had read reviews of this book before I purchased it. I had previously read all three books from Dart-Thornton's pervious series and found the first book good, the second two decreasingly enjoyable. Maybe I should have born that in mind, but the premise sounded good and I was genuinely excited to start this series. I am returning the book (to the store where it was purchased) to exchange it for something I will enjoy more.
December 17, 2011
I couldn't put these books down. I loved it from the first few chapters. It's a very detailed and intricate story with lots of twists and turns in the plot. I totally didn't expect the ending and didn't want it to end when it did. I fell in love with the last book and I loved the world that Cecilia Dart-Thornton created to set these stories in. Different from anything I've written before and I loved them as much as I loved the Farseer trilogy and Liveship traders (my fav books)
August 30, 2010
Slow, slow, slow! Another book by Dart-Thornton with a good story idea that is absolutely smothered by her horrible writing style. There were a few moments where I genuinely felt moved but these were few and far between. After reading the second book in this series I gave up, something I have only done with 1 other series of books.
April 15, 2011
I am generally a huge Dart-Thornton fan, but I just could not get into this book. I hate to compare and author's works against one another, but I can't help but think this story pales in comparison with her Bitterbynde trilogy. It's a real shame as I think she is a very talented writer.
October 25, 2018
Cecília writes a beatiful, long, love story, filled with many creatures of eldritch, adventures. Slow pace and quiet fun, compared to The Bitterbynde Trilogy. But brace yourselves, this is just the beggining of a very long, epic, multigenerational tetralogy.
February 21, 2008
Strong Celtic influence, both for mythological characters and main characters. Consistant character development and growth. Fluid plot, well paced.
October 15, 2009
It was a fun book. It kept me wondering what would happen next. And, of course, it has romance!
August 12, 2011
Another one of those series that I just can't put down....each book has left me wanting a little more....this series has to be in my top ten
May 13, 2018
2.5 stars Way too much detail and descriptions for me. Took to long to get anywhere.
September 25, 2022
Her prose is annoying at times.
August 26, 2021
This series came out after the Bitterbynd trilogy she wrote, but I read this one first as I bought it at a small bookstore near my house and didn't know she had a previous series. This doesn't really matter, as they are not connected, but most other reviews say they read her first series before this one. That will come into play later.
I have read this book twice. Once as a teenager, and once as a mid-twenties adult. I enjoyed it much more as a teenager, but it was very hard to get through as an adult. I really, really enjoy the multi-generational, fantasy based story line - it had genuine surprises and great exploring of a beautiful medieval world. The writing style itself is just awful. I feel like the author was failed miserably by her editor. The situation is devastating because the story itself is so good and has so much potential. She does a good job of dropping in little nuggets that make sense in the final novel, and it is rare to find an author that ties in their world so well together. But still, the writing is so, so bad. I do think it gets a little better each novel, so I encourage people to not give up on the series - the payoff at the end is worth it, but you have to suffer for it. I agree that it is overly flowery and descriptive, but the part that makes that more grating is that those flowery and descriptors are repeated, often, so it feels like you are wasting your time. I actually like descriptive worlds and a slower pace, but this was way too much. If it didn't have her name on both of the series, there's no way I would guess that it was written by the same author.
Now I know that is a bit harsh, and I recognize that writing is hard and a lot of work, and I appreciate all of the work put into these books. But they would be miles better if the editor had slashed big chunks out of the books and had them rewritten. The series would have been very successful, because the ideas in the series are incredible and each book leaves you itching for more. I think these could even have a rewrite now and they would be immensely successful. It would be so interesting to be turned into a HBO or Prime show - there's a lot of good material.
I have read this book twice. Once as a teenager, and once as a mid-twenties adult. I enjoyed it much more as a teenager, but it was very hard to get through as an adult. I really, really enjoy the multi-generational, fantasy based story line - it had genuine surprises and great exploring of a beautiful medieval world. The writing style itself is just awful. I feel like the author was failed miserably by her editor. The situation is devastating because the story itself is so good and has so much potential. She does a good job of dropping in little nuggets that make sense in the final novel, and it is rare to find an author that ties in their world so well together. But still, the writing is so, so bad. I do think it gets a little better each novel, so I encourage people to not give up on the series - the payoff at the end is worth it, but you have to suffer for it. I agree that it is overly flowery and descriptive, but the part that makes that more grating is that those flowery and descriptors are repeated, often, so it feels like you are wasting your time. I actually like descriptive worlds and a slower pace, but this was way too much. If it didn't have her name on both of the series, there's no way I would guess that it was written by the same author.
Now I know that is a bit harsh, and I recognize that writing is hard and a lot of work, and I appreciate all of the work put into these books. But they would be miles better if the editor had slashed big chunks out of the books and had them rewritten. The series would have been very successful, because the ideas in the series are incredible and each book leaves you itching for more. I think these could even have a rewrite now and they would be immensely successful. It would be so interesting to be turned into a HBO or Prime show - there's a lot of good material.
April 6, 2022
In all honesty, I was slightly disappointed by this book. Although I enjoyed it at times and it was nostalgic reading this type of fantasy writing style after not doing so for so long, overall I had rather high expectations. I read the Bitterbynde trilogy several years ago and fell completely in love with the story. I loved the writing style, the characters and the fairytale elements.
Some of these aspects are shown in this book as well, I do enjoy Cecilia Dart-Thornton's use of fairytale creatures and her adaptation of magical ideas from several cultures, and as an Australian reader I particularly enjoy the random mentions of animals such as a bilby or in the Ill-Made Mute a platypus which rarely show through in stories even by Australian authors.
However, I couldn't really get attached to the characters, it was as though there was a barrier between myself and them I couldn't overcome, perhaps they were just too difficult to relate to as they seemed almost too perfect to be human. A lot of the story is spent romanticising the characters, which was done much less in Dart-Thornton's previous trilogy where all characters were questioned as whether truly good or bad and their faults and humanity were evident.
Also, the pace didn't sit right with me, it was too slow to begin with and then became quite engaging for a good deal of the story but towards the ending, the pace picked up a lot and 12 years pass in almost one chapter.
Despite this, if you are a fantasy reader who enjoys rather traditional elements of fantasy novels I recommend giving this a read, and although I didn't give this book a great rating (really it would be between 2 and 3 but I stuck with 2 stars) I will continue the series.
Some of these aspects are shown in this book as well, I do enjoy Cecilia Dart-Thornton's use of fairytale creatures and her adaptation of magical ideas from several cultures, and as an Australian reader I particularly enjoy the random mentions of animals such as a bilby or in the Ill-Made Mute a platypus which rarely show through in stories even by Australian authors.
However, I couldn't really get attached to the characters, it was as though there was a barrier between myself and them I couldn't overcome, perhaps they were just too difficult to relate to as they seemed almost too perfect to be human. A lot of the story is spent romanticising the characters, which was done much less in Dart-Thornton's previous trilogy where all characters were questioned as whether truly good or bad and their faults and humanity were evident.
Also, the pace didn't sit right with me, it was too slow to begin with and then became quite engaging for a good deal of the story but towards the ending, the pace picked up a lot and 12 years pass in almost one chapter.
Despite this, if you are a fantasy reader who enjoys rather traditional elements of fantasy novels I recommend giving this a read, and although I didn't give this book a great rating (really it would be between 2 and 3 but I stuck with 2 stars) I will continue the series.
May 5, 2020
In 'The Iron Tree' (Book One of the Crowthistle Chronicles), Dart-Thornton draws on an impressive array of influences from Northern European folklore, forming a vivid backdrop to the traditional plot. The novel’s core is the “hero’s journey” of Jarred, a fatherless youth who leaves his tiny village on the edge of the desert to journey to Tir’s capital. Putatively invulnerable because of an amulet left by his vanished father, Jarred discovers the amulet to be a placebo, and his apparent invulnerability inherited. In the fens Jarred meets Lilith, a lovely young girl threatened by hereditary madness. Falling in love, Jarred adds a second quest to his search for his father--to discover a cure for Lilith’s family's affliction. As he searches, Jarred learns the truth of his family origins, information which puts both him and Lilith in jeopardy. All the ingredients of great epic fantasy are here: wicked magicians, curses, spirits, talismans, evil wights, a strong hero and an imperiled heroine, described in elegant rhythmic language. Readers preferring a bit of action mixed in with the love story, however, will find the pace too leisurely—the prose tends to creep at a turtle’s pace, burying any suspense in a flood of lush detail. The author has created a unique and credible world, but this is not enough to compensate the average reader for the slow-moving plot and long-winded writing style.
April 27, 2021
Purtroppo comprai questo libro e quello successivo quando ancora ero convinta che lo stile e i temi della Dart-Thornton mi piacessero. Ormai non è più così.
Il "fantasy-romantico" - come piace chiamarlo a me - non è pane per i miei denti da qualche anno, quindi la trama di questo volume mi ha abbastanza annoiata. Parlando dello stile, invece, mi rendo conto ora di quanto sia prolisso in modo inutile in alcuni punti specifici (descrivere OGNI oggetto che è possibile comprare in una fiera di paese è un tantinello eccessivo).
Conoscendo l'autrice ho un'idea di come potrà andare avanti la storia, ma aspetto di leggere il resto con fiducia.
Il "fantasy-romantico" - come piace chiamarlo a me - non è pane per i miei denti da qualche anno, quindi la trama di questo volume mi ha abbastanza annoiata. Parlando dello stile, invece, mi rendo conto ora di quanto sia prolisso in modo inutile in alcuni punti specifici (descrivere OGNI oggetto che è possibile comprare in una fiera di paese è un tantinello eccessivo).
Conoscendo l'autrice ho un'idea di come potrà andare avanti la storia, ma aspetto di leggere il resto con fiducia.
December 3, 2021
A very descriptive book. The amount of detail provided in the book makes it very hard to read. If you like flowery descriptive details that include details down to the colour of the shine on a button.... then this book is great for you. However I found the details bogged me down and I found myself skimming over the longer parts looking for the continuation of the story.
The story itself is amazing but due to the frequent interuptions of life and the overly descriptive language I could not immerse myself in the story to enjoy it fully.
The story itself is amazing but due to the frequent interuptions of life and the overly descriptive language I could not immerse myself in the story to enjoy it fully.
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August 7, 2021I did enjoy this book, although it was over-long and the writing dipped from beautiful to silly & overwrought at times (at least for my taste). But based on the setup for the next book I am interested to continue reading! Without spoilers, this series is one of those where you get new main characters every book, or at least in the first three books I think, and I'm really into that type of series lately so we'll see how the next one goes.
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