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Title: Strange yet familiar
Review: Yearwood is an unexpected book. On the one hand, it is full of half-familiar, half-remembered names from Celtic and Gaelic lore, old themes of selkies ("selchies"), speaking crows (think of the Northern Ravens), islands in the seas and other witcheries. For me the cadence took some getting used to, although 20-odd years ago when I read more of the older fantasies and original materials it would not have seemed so odd. The wounded hero, Finn, is not weak, but a mixture of ignorant and arrogant, the way youth and beauty can and should be. I think it is a very good book, but it is not fast and easy going, and it is not just the same old same old rehash of Americanized pop pseudo-Celtic themes. I am looking forward to reading Undersea and Winterking also. If you liked this melange of familiar yet not quite the same, you might like Tad Williams' To Green Angel Tower.
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