Review: Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick

Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick

won from The Book Chick City

Synopsis from Goodreads
Have you ever had the feeling that you've lived another life? Been somewhere that has felt totally familiar, even though you've never been there before, or felt that you know someone well, even though you are meeting them for the first time? It happens. 

In 2073 on the remote and secretive island of Blessed, where rumour has it that no one ages and no children are born, a visiting journalist, Eric Seven, and a young local woman known as Merle are ritually slain.

 Their deaths echo a moment ten centuries before, when, in the dark of the moon, a king was slain, tragically torn from his queen. Their souls search to be reunited, and as mother and son, artist and child, forbidden lovers, victims of a vampire they come close to finding what they've lost. In a novel comprising seven parts, each influenced by a moon - the flower moon, the harvest moon, the hunter's moon, the blood moon - this is the story of Eric and Merle whose souls have been searching for each other since their untimely parting.

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7/10

* * *

 Really weird book. I don't know what to think of it or if I liked it. 


It starts in 2073 and grabs your attention in a manner of The Wicker Man - a lone journalist on a weird little island full of happy childless people. He is investigating a strange orchid rumoured to be sold on the black market and used to gain immortality.

But the story is split into several time periods going back ten centuries and concentrating on two souls which keep reincarnating and keep dieing tragically without a proper reunion and happy ending.

It's tantalising but not meaty enough, foggy, mysterious and dark story, but I couldn't quite like it despite author's compelling writing because it doesn't offer us as readers fulfilment. There is no satisfaction in the end, and ultimately I felt cheated.

Read at your own risk.

* * *

Очень странная вышла книга несмотря на красивый, интересный слог автора, и я не скажу что она мне понравилась.

Концепция сюжета - на любителя. Повествование начинается в будущем (2073г.) и сразу же интригует. Однако действие в этих временных памках быстро завершается и переходит в следующий временной период в прошлом - и так в течение 10 веков.

Действие сосредоточено на двух душах, которые перерождаются чтобы быть вместе и каждый раз умирают мучительной и трагической смертью в различных ипостасях.

Честно говоря, книгу я не поняла. Что автор хотел передать сюжетом, что нам следует из этой книги вынести, к чему все эти жертвоприношения и ипостаси луны? Хрен его знает. Зато красиво.

Читайте на свой страх и риск.