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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Well written but long winded, 8 Sep 2006
The Well of Tears is a 500 page novel which could have been written in 300 pages. Dart-Thornton's prose is well crafted, as always, but the emphasis lies on descriptive passages which sometimes felt repetive in the first volume (The Iron Tree), and now often feel like a waste of time. The characterisation is quite shallow and the plot is mediocre. The stories about folklore and wights are fascinating but don't always fit well into the flow of the story.
The Ill-Made Mute is an exceedingly good novel; if you are new to Dart-Thornton then definitely start there. If you've read her before then don't maintain high expectations for The Well of Tears; it isn't her best work.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Well-Load of Description!, 12 Jan 2006
In the second book of The Crowthistle Chronicles we follow the daughter of Jarred and Lilith as she escapes from the Great Marsh with her Uncle Eoin. After much sojourning, enriched with the unique descriptive styles of Ms Dart-Thornton, she finds a home amongst the fabled and much revered Weathermasters of High Darioneth in the land of Narngalis. Entrusting her secret to Storm Lord Avalloc, her identity is closely guarded from the aristocracy of the lawless city of Cathair Rua in Slievmordhu, who would exploit her lineage for their own gain, and so Jewel believes that she will find peace and security. Her secret, as we know, is that she is the sole heir of the wicked sorcerer Janos Jaravhor and therefore the only living person who can breach the notorious Dome of Strang, and partake of the rumoured wealth therein. Although Jewel has found a fragile peace, the Dome is an ever constant shadow that darkens her otherwise trouble-free days. So much so, that one day Jewel steels away to face the Dome and claim its dark secrets.
Doing this serves two things: the first is to set up the story of The Well of Tears, as it sends Jewel on a mission to locate a certain gift desired by man since the dawn of time, a gift located at a certain Well. The second is to cancel out all mystery that the story evoked in its first two chapters. That doesn't make this a bad story by any means, but it does lend the story a certain erratic quality that made me feel the author herself was unsure as to where she wanted to take it - hence the four stars instead of 5. As a whole it is a far more consistent story than The Iron Tree, which was basically a 400 page prologue for Jewel's travails in the Well of Tears.
One element of the story, as in The Bitterbynde (her first body of work) that really makes you pay attention are the descriptions the author uses that are unparrelled and quite without precedent. Dart-Thornton has a unique way of turning a flat sentence of words into a magical evening filled with wonderment and enticement; or an autumn afternoon into crystal clarity bedecked with a butter-curl carpet of leaf-shaped flames.
The hint of a bigger world where intrigue plays amongst a diverse cast of characters is occasionally evident, and whet's the appetite for what I hope will be expanded upon in the next two books.
You also get a CD-Rom with this book which shows you a visual interpretation of two locations in the story, those being The Great Marsh and Rowan Green in High Darioneth. Anyone who has played a Myst adventure will know what to expect as the worlds and the way you move about them look exactly like the game, just in 3D.
All being said, if you can be patient with all the yo-yoing between places and the long journey's, you will find here a good story possessing rare moments of excitement that almost rival those of The Bitterbynde; a story that can yet enchant you with its unrivalled descriptive quality and wights both seelie and unseelie. You'll probably find the end a tad predictable (at least I did) but Ms Dart-Thornton does a good job of dropping the vaguest of hints and promises of mystery to come in the final pages. The next book, Weatherwitch, will certainly be worth looking out for.
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7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Saccharine romantic fantasy, 18 Aug 2006
I was very impressed with Dart-Thornton's first trilogy (the Bitterbynde one), despite what I felt was a less-than-satisfactory ending... Great research, nice use of mythology, and suprisingly good characters.
The second trilogy hasn't met up to expectations so far - book one was okay, intriguing enough to encourage me to buy an early copy of the Well of Tears. But, honestly, I feel like the author's fascination with long-haired macho heros and beautiful but misunderstood heroines has gone on long enough. It's degenerated into soppy romance; and not the good kind. It's a wearisome, over-embellished read. By the end, I was wondering: What is the point?
I'm certainly not going to buy part 3 - unless I wanted to give myself a case of literary diabetes, that is.
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