The Iron Tree
The Crowthistle Chronicles, No. 1

By Cecilia Dart-Thornton

    If you liked the Celtic dreamworld depicted by Cecilia Dart-Thornton in her Bitterbynd trilogy then you will also enjoy this new set of books. Young Jarred lives in the far south of the continent, a hot desert land of earthquakes and small close-knit villages. Like his friends he yearns to travel, and also to find out more about the mysterious talisman which keeps him from harm and to discover the identity of his father. But he loses his heart to beautiful Lilith in the marsh country of Slievmordhu and settles down to raise a family, wanderlust forgotten. He still wants to find out about his father though, and soon he has another more chilling reason to discover family secrets - this time about his wife’s antecedents. In doing so he is going to uncover all kinds of dark truths, and have more adventures than he intended.

    Inside another lovely piece of cover art there dwells a good story, just the thing to put my faith back in this entertaining author after the disappointing finale to her earlier trilogy. Here again is the same Celtic-inspired setting complete with seelie and unseelie wights, and a wonderful depiction of the marsh country that brings the tale to life. These creatures are woven more into the story, instead of being wheeled on and off in quickfire and bewildering succession and this works much better. It is a gripping story too, although the ending was too abrupt and, rather akin to the final volume of the trilogy, didn’t quite seem to belong with the rest of the book. What I liked best (and you can still hear me applauding) is the fact that the next book is going to have a different story in it that is related, but not a mere continuation. Tolkein has really been thrown out of the window here (now I am really cheering) if we are in fact being treated to three separate but linked stories rather than the usual single long story in three volumes. There is always a surprise or two in one of this author’s books and this one is no different. Great stuff!