Midwinterblood
Written by Marcus Sedgwick Book Review by Miranda Fraser Moses ISBN: 978-1-250-04007-7 Welcome back ghouls and ghosties! It's the best time of year- HALLOWEEN BOOK REVIEW SEASON! It's good to be back! So, let's get into the book reviews you need for this spooky time of year. Midwinterblood is written by Marcus Sedgwick as a YA novel. It was brought to my attention by Goodreads who marketed this as a horror novel. After reading it, I have to say I don't see the "horror" aspect of it. Yes, there are very chilling moments but definitely not horror. Is that to say that it isn't a good book? No. And given the nature of the story I have to be careful with what I say so I don't spoil anything, but I do plan on addressing some of the comments I've seen about this story. First of all, I want to give the author some serious credit. This whole book was based off a painting called "Midvinterblot" by Carl Larsson. It is a painting of a sacrificial scene. In fact, it is described in this book and I was blown away to get to the end and find out it is a real painting. I had to look it up for myself and it is quite a painting. He also based the island this story takes place in, on an actual island in Sweden he stayed at one summer. I just thought these were really neat facts and I will be addressing something else from the author in a little bit. The novel itself actually breaks down into seven separate stories, although they have common things connecting them. They take place in different time periods, starting in 2073, 2011, 1944, 1902, 1848, 10th century, and finally a time unknown. The inside cover breaks it down nicely: "the story of an archaeologist who unearths a mysterious artifact; of an airman who finds himself far from home; of a painter, a ghost, a vampire, and Viking." And each of these stories also takes place on the Island of Blessed. Without spoiling too much we learn that blessed actually derived from a form of the word blood and therefore the island's name itself references blood sacrifices. Which was a chilling addition to the story. As I stated, the timeline above is going from future to past. The first story is about a man named Eric Seven who is sent to the Island of Blessed to research a flower that has mysterious powers and is said to heal/give severely prolonged life. Once there he notices things are very odd, including the fact that there are no children running around. And as his days draw out on the island, he can’t help but feel a familiarity with the island and a woman that lives there. Merle is very beautiful, but it is more than that. He believes he has met her before and wants desperately to get to know her. But the story is marketed as a “horror” story, so I’m sure you can already see that a happy ending is not exactly in the deck here. As I mentioned, the island obviously has known blood sacrifices. But the story in here about a painter (where the famous real-life painting is described) also discusses sacrifices. The painter tells people that while blood sacrifices may be a thing of the past, the world is full of sacrifices. He states that wars equates sacrifice, a mother dying in childbirth is a sacrifice, a parent working themselves to death to feed their child is a sacrifice, love and loss, suffering, and so on. And this is what the author has stated was his overall view. He wanted to express the various types of love and sacrifice there are in the world. And this has some readers upset because they can’t see how he can have a story that is essentially sandwiched in romance (the first and seventh story) have so many non-romantic related relationships throughout the rest of these timelines. I get it though. It’s a love that is so intense it is more than just romantic. I think looking at it from an overview of what love means is more important than looking at the individual situations themselves. And I KNOW this doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I’m trying really, really hard not to ruin the story. And while we’re talking about things that really seemed to bother other readers- there is a heavy number of wild hares mentioned throughout this book. I don’t honestly know why the author chose that particular animal. My first thought was that maybe there were hares in the painting, but that’s it. Then I searched the spiritual meaning behind hares and found that they “represent illumination, intuition, promise and balance. They are strongly feminine in their energy and often come into your life when you need to look within and figure things out.” Which does fit with the themes of the stories. But if you search for Sweedish island full of hares, you will get an excerpt about the island of Gotland, where it states, “the mountain hare which was present on the island more than 9000 years ago”. So perhaps he chose the hare, because it would be conceivable to have been around during a time period so far back people don’t even remember the year it took place. OR maybe the author just really loves hares and wanted one more common theme throughout the seven stories? Who knows? I just thought what I found was really neat and might give the next reader food for thought *shrugs* In conclusion, I really did enjoy this story. It’s not terribly long. It certainly makes you think. It was chilling and morbid like a Grimm tale. But it also left just enough of a mystery that you don’t want to put it down. Even the negative reviews I saw were people saying that had to finish it because they were so invested in getting answers. So, if nothing else I promise you will want to see it through, cover to cover. And I hope you guys can enjoy this morbid look into love. I’d love to hear from other readers on what they thought too. Read on my fellow book worms. May we one day have Belle's library. As always links to the author's pages can be found down below.
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