by Juliet Marillier
Things change when their father is taken ill and has to leave for a warmer climate to convalesce. Leaving them enough money to get them through Winter and with confidence they can run the house and his business for a few quiet months, he leaves. Enter the girl’s cousin, Cezar. With a deep-seated hatred of the forests and the people of the Other Kingdom whom he blames for his older brother’s death years ago, Cezar seeks to destroy the forest, flatten the land and drive the inhabitants away. He also holds the view that girls should be wives and mothers only, and quickly insinuates himself into their lives, undermining their authority bit by bit and taking over the running of the house and business. Without their father to help they can do little to stop him until eventually, they are prisoners in their own home.
Jena ends up caught in the middle of an impossible situation, with no one but her frog, Gogu, to confide in. She desperately fights to retain control of the sisters’ house and their lives, run her father’s business, warn the Queen of the forest of Cezar’s plans and keep their portal safe. On top of that, her older sister Tati falls in love with one of the Night People, whom Jena greatly distrusts, and is wasting away pining for him, and Jena eventually ends up torn in too many directions at once.
Based on the classic story “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” this book is aimed squarely at young adults, and being romantic and dark by turns, aimed pretty squarely at the girls, so I wasn’t sure how I was going react. It came as something of a surprise, then, how much I enjoyed it.
It starts straight in with the dancing by the full moon and keeps up a great pace throughout, perfectly balancing the time spent in both worlds and realising that the real story is between Jena and her cousin Cezar, reconciling the events surrounding his brother’s death. It has recognisable and complex characters who don’t always do the right or sensible thing and fully realised worlds, both in its depiction of rural Transylvania, its folklore and traditions and in the fantastical world of the Other Kingdom and its inhabitants. It doesn’t shy away deep themes either, exploring on its way love and death, truth and perception and power and choice.
Granted, in places it’s a little black and white; Cezar is painted as a bad person throughout with little evidence of any redeeming quality, the various servants, farmhands and labourers are all salt of the earth types who’d never do anything wrong and the other sisters are all archetypes, the brainy one, the baby, the beautiful one etc. although the lovelorn Tati just needs a good slap and told to pull herself together. Also, the outcome of the story is telegraphed from very early on so by the end you’re just waiting for Jena to catch on to what you already know which isn’t such a bad thing for younger readers but for anyone else is a shame.
But for all that, Wildwood Dancing is a beautifully written and thoroughly engaging fairy tale – and the cover art is lovely by the way – and I, for one, already have the sequel lined up in my to read pile.
Wildwood Dancing