The prose tends toward formality and can sound haughty, and one theme (magical Ancestors) is superfluous. When the beast/enchanter comes after her again, Alexandra escapes to an abandoned cottage and begins weaving nettle shirts to restore her brothers’ bodies, still unaware of her own vast magical power. Alexandra’s banished to an austere aunt’s house and awaits her brothers’ rescue. Her father sets out to hunt the beast but is instead ensnared by a bewitching woman with chestnut hair. After a mystifying coming-of-age ceremony that Alexandra doesn’t understand, a beast with chestnut fur attacks and kills her mother. She romps through the fields with her wonderful brothers and studies herb lore with her wise mother. Marriott offers a romantic expansion of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Wild Swans.” Alexandra is a classic king’s daughter: green-eyed and red-haired, intelligent and homely.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |