Wildwood Dancing

But with some real life issues, such as the poverty the girls face.

I really loved Jena in this book. She was such a strong character! The twists and turns in this book are enough to make you never want to put it down! I highly recommend you buy it if you're considering it. It'll make you want to dance. And that ending? I'm still not over it. (In a good way :) )

This book is so wonderful, enchanting, sweet and left me feeling warm inside. You will fall in love with the characters and the setting. This is definitely one of my favorites.

Jena and her four sisters have plenty of everyday worries, with their mother gone and their father ill. They do have something they can look forward to during each Full Moon: they have a portal into the Other Kingdom, the world of fairies and dwarfs. But dangers lurk there, too. When the Night People pay a visit to the fairy court and one of Jena's sisters begins to fall in love with one, Jena begins to have doubts about their monthly visits. At first the language of the story seemed flowery and heavy, which is not necessarily a bad thing, just something you have to be in the right mood for. Once I got a little way into the book, I was completely entranced. The author has weaved an amazingly visual and absorbing tale. Jena is a very sympathetic heroine, you can feel her fear, her joy, her anger, her contentedness. In fact, she reminded me just a little of Pride and Prejudice's Lizzie Bennett. Wildwood Dancing is a thrilling and beautiful book that I couldn't stop reading. **Originally posted on WORD blog**

After flying through the world of Sevenwaters, I decided to look into Marillier's other books. This is book has so much of what I love in it - flawed heroes and heroines, endings that tie into the beginning through unexpected turns, a wide spectrum of magic and fantasy, a few love stories that twine through the large story, and of course, elements of familiar fairy tales used in a thrilling and entertaining way Any fan of Juliet Marillier, fairy tales retold by any author, the fantasy genre, and good literature in general should pick this up at once.

This book is an enchanting blend of fairytale and the struggle of everyday life. Five sisters are forced to fend for themselves when their father leaves them for the winter. Rather than getting help from their cousin, Jena and her sisters find themselves trapped under Cezar's tyrannical demands. But not everything is terrible for the five girls. Unknown to others, every full moon provides them with an escape to an enchanted world of fairies, nymphs, dwarves, and dancing. But even that is threatened when the Night People begin to attend the festivities, and it is left up to Jena (and her friend, the frog Gogu) to protect her sisters in both worlds. Brimming with intrigue, adventure, and romance, you'll quickly find yourself absorbed in Juliet Marillier's Wildwood Dancing.

I don't recall the last time I've read a fiction book based on classic fairy tales that was this excellent, and I've read many. The tone of this book does indeed feel a lot like the recent works of Patricia McKillip, but Marillier manages to make you care about the characters more (and this is coming from a huge McKillip fan). I don't cry easily at books, but I found myself moved to tears at several points. The book takes the fairy tale of the 12 Dancing Princesses and sets it in Romania, telling of 5 sisters who journey through a secret portal at Full Moon each month to dance in the Realm of Faerie. Things start to turn when their father has to go away for the winter because of illness, and the oldest daughter falls in love with one of the Night People (vampires, more successfully incorporated into Faerie context than anything else I've read). Add a plot with an outstandingly rendered true soulmate friendship between the lead character and her pet frog, who communicates to her in her mind, and this book was the first book in literally YEARS that I truly couldn't put down at night, and stayed up late to finish. The "villain" of the book as well is a brilliantly rendered character, who you both loathe and feel sorry for at the same time. I'd love to see Juliet Marillier do more books along the line of classic fairy tale retellings. It suits her so very well. Even though this book is technically a young adult novel, it is one of the most fascinating and maturely written plots I've read in years, and can be appreciated by fairy tale lovers of all ages.

I am a huge fan of Juliet Marillier's Sevenwaters trilogy and was so excited to hear that she was delving into a more light-hearted, young-adult style with her latest novel. This is one of those rare books that captures you instantly and keeps you reading late into the night just so you can find out how it ends. Wildwood Dancing is a whimsical twist on the story of the twelve dancing princesses. Juliet Mariller has chisled away at seven of the sisters and left us with a faerie tale about five young sisters who, on the night of the full moon, venture to the wildwood forest, a place of faeries and other creatures, where they can spend these nights dancing and being merry. The heroine of the story is Jena, the second eldest of the sisters and the one who seems to be the most in charge. Jena's best friend is her pet frog Gogu, who she can communicate with. The story has many themes and issues that are all very adult in context. The story starts out with Jena and her sisters being left alone as there father travels far away to do business. The girls are left to care for the castle and this is something they are fine with...until there conniving cousin Cezar comes into the mix. Cezar is one of the BEST villians I have loathed in a long, long time. He wants power, and when the girls get news that there father is ill and may not return, Cezar moves himself into the castle and decides he is in charge. The elements of sexism and women not having rights is strong and I was very irritated at the way the girls were treated by Cezar just because they are female. There is plenty of magic and romance in this novel and it is beautifully written and elegantly paced. I relished every last page of this book! If you are looking for a somewhat historical, magical, light-hearted, romantic tale, then you should definetly pick this book! The only thing that bothered me about the book was the whole, "cousins in love" thing...which really bothered me...but, still, the writing was so fantastic and the plot was so engrossing that I can't help but give this one 5 stars!