It makes you work for the final answer you find in the epilogue, even though it's so simply constructed. He has illustrated some of his books, and has provided wood-engravings for a couple of private press books. It's billed as YA, but generally feels quite adult, not in the sense of being full of sex, but just in the age and outlook of many of the characters. VERDICT: An unexpected book, but not without a few issues, MIDWINTERBLOOD is a chilling but enthralling story that pulls you in with ghosts, vampires, and murder, and refuses to let you go until you realize that every word makes sense in the great scheme of things.

Told in seven short stories, it journeys back through time to King Eirikr and his beloved wife Melle. The way the story was told was somewhat odd and different, and not something I ever truly meshed it. Beautifully composed in seven parts, traveling backwards in time to the origin of Eric and Merle’s tragic story, Midwinterblood is a reverse-palimpsest of sorts – wholly unexpected, haunting, and utterly memorable.You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Been somewhere that has felt totally familiar even though you've never been there before, or felt that you've known someone even though you are meeting them for the first time? Getting the little snippets throughout time meant you started to get an overview and started to see a pattern of the story as a whole.

He has published novels such as Floodland (winner of the Branford Boase Award in 2001) and The Dark Horse (shortlisted for The Guardian Children's Book Award 2002).They're presented as flowers that a) make people on the island live forever, b) make people on the island infertile, c) have healing powers, and d) can also be brewed into a tea that causes forgetfulness. I read it in a single feverish sitting, late one evening, and drifted to sleep haunted by its vision of love and fate and history. I think that the entire story could have been so much richer and more vivid with more description and emotion. It is an intriguing idea, combining old myths, legends, and modern horror themes like those shown in 'The Wicker Man'. Jednu od njih sam bukvalno osetila na koži naježivši se, druga me je udarila silovito u grudi, treća mi je ščepala srce.

Midwinterblood reminds me of Cloud Atlas (in terms of the connecting stories), When the Sea is Rising Red and The Brides of Rollrock Island (because of the richness in tales of love lost, found, and lost again). To naročito važi za prvi segment koji je izrazito loše napisan, u monotonom stakato ritmu, gde se kratke rečenice samo nižu a na svakih desetak reči ide novi pasus. See, Merle came from a rich family and Erik was only a lowly fisherman, so Merle's father would not let them be together. Koncept je zanimljiv i neću ga spojlovati (mada, one gornje tri stvari su već dovoljne za debelo spojlovanje, izvinite) ali izvedba je prilično oskudna.

It's really not YA in theme, tone, or the age of its central characters, so, uh, what else is there? Inevitably, he ends up on a stone altar, the local knife-wielding high priest poised above him, ready to strike. Finally we end up in the dark ages, with a chieftain reluctantly offering up his blood to save the island from famine.