Child of the Prophecy: Darker

Child of the Prophecy by Juliet Marillier

While, like Son of the Shadows, Child of the Prophecy is never quite as wonderful as Daughter of the Forest, it is nevertheless a good book, and worth reading if you liked the first two.

This one is darker in tone. In Daughter of the Forest, the heroes and villains were clearly delineated; in Son of the Shadows the line between the two was more hazy, but the heroine herself was beyond reproach. In Child of the Prophecy the heroine, Fainne, is a conflicted and flawed character in ways that Sorcha and Liadan never were.

Fainne, child of the forbidden union of Ciaran and Niamh, is raised by her father in the lonely reaches of Kerry. When her father falls ill, Fainne’s grandmother, the evil Oonagh, takes Fainne under her wing. The sorceress has a diabolical plan that will destroy all of the good of Sevenwaters, and Fainne is to be her tool. Through threats and emotional blackmail, she presses the girl into her service; through trickery, she causes Fainne to do some truly terrible things. Fainne feels she is destined to be forever evil and forever alone, and so she does not fight back — until the people of Sevenwaters reach out to her, and she begins to understand love and family. “You forget,” says one character, “that every girl has two grandmothers.”

Once Fainne begins to grow a spine, the dark and depressing narrative turns passionate and exciting. How can she carry out Oonagh’s scheme? Is it possible to fight her? How strong can Fainne be?

Again, while this is not the romantic “fairy tale” of Daughter of the Forest it is an engaging story and a fitting ending to the Sevenwaters saga. Fainne is much more than she seems. If you can get through the first half of the book, you’ll love the second half.