Reviewed by Alyssa Mackenzie
An engaging and original take on a favourite fairy-tale.
A haunted forest. A cursed mansion. One girl running from her past and one man who’s more than he seems to be. A stunning tale of love, betrayal and redemption.
Whistling Tor is a place of secrets, a mysterious, wooded hill housing the crumbling fortress of a chieftain whose name is spoken throughout the district in tones of revulsion and bitterness. A curse lies over Anluan’s family and his people; the woods hold a perilous force whose every whisper threatens doom.
And yet the derelict fortress, which houses both good and evil, is a safe haven for the troubled young scribe Caitrin who is fleeing her own demons. Despite Anluan’s tempers and the mysterious secrets housed in the dark corridors, this place, where nobody else is prepared to go, seems exactly what she needs.
As Caitrin comes to know Anluan and his home she realizes there is more to the broken young man than it first seems. And it is only through her love and determination that the curse can be broken and Anluan and his people set free…
In her adaptation of “Beauty and the Beast”, Juliet Marillier has, in some respects, taken a fairytale and turned it into a ghost story. Heart’s Blood has all the traditional elements of the story: a beautiful young woman, a curse to be broken, a bargain over a plant found in a charmed garden, and magic mirrors. However, Whistling Tor is not an enchanted castle with a monster for a master; it is unsettling more than anything else, and its chieftain is a human being warped by unhappiness. The curse has not turned him into a monster; rather, it has shackled him to a group of violent spirits he must struggle to control.
