Rating: 
Summary: Thoroughly Absorbing
Review: As I know little of Irish folklore, I have no idea as to wheither or not Marillier based her last two books in the Sevenwaters Trilogy on some loosely-told tale. Of course, I knew the basis of the first story--- the swan transformation and of the girl who had the task of sewing the special shirts to bring her brothers back to human form. I loved the first person narrative--more so the character of Sorcha, young and vulnerable than her daughter Liadan who is just a tad too perfect to be thought real. And I loved the romance between the lead characters and their chosen ones -- Marillier weaves a wonderful spell that can move you to tears.
However, of all the heroines, I love Fianne of 'Child of the Prophesy' the best. The daughter of Liaden's sister and the son of the evil lady Oonagh, Fianne lives a lonely life of study as an adept in the sorcerer's arts. Her grandmother, Oonagh, threatens her beloved father's life if she does not comply and do the evil witch's dirty business of somehow ensuring the failure of Liaden's son, Johnny (the Child of the Prophesy) and his mission to take back into Irish control the sacred islands from the Britons. Oonagh wishes to finally destroy Sevenwaters and in the confused Fianne she finds a vulnerable tool. The reader is privy to much delightful spellcasting as Fianne hones her craft and travels from Kerry to the north of Ireland to Sevenwaters where she initiates a plan of such intrigue you cannot fail to be entertained and mesmerized. All the loose ends of the other two books are brought together satisfactorily in this last installement. As Fianne continues on her painful path of destruction, she learns about family, love and above all her own strength -- a quality she did not think she possessed. At the novel's climax, Fianne discovers something so surprising, even though the reader may have guessed long before, that the reader marvels at Marillier's developing talent in creating a character so full of doubt and yet relentlessly full of potential. For those romantics, throughout the tale, a gentle love story evolves between Fianne and her chosen--there are thankfully no pages-long sex scenes here, just a sweet realization as the trilogy ends like most fairytales---reason fading into the mist of imagination. Mariellier has created a lovely nuanced character that will long be remembered. Well done!
Rating:
Summary: Just as good as the others
Review: I read the reviews for this book before getting it, and I was reluctant to buy it for two reasons. The first was that many people said that it wasnt as good as the others, and the second was that I had been looking forward to another book that took place at sevenwaters, and the idea of reading about some sorcerers daughter did not sound appealing to me.
However, when i finally bought the book and started it, i realized I was badly mistaken. This book was just as good as her other books, and it kept me reading well into the night.
Fianne is a sorcerers daugher, granddaughter of Lady OOnagh, who tried desperately to destroy the sevenwaters family years before, and product of a forbidden love between Ciaran and Niamh. In this book, we follow Fianne as she goes to Sevenwaters to join her family as Lady Oonagh watches over, trying to make Fianne finish off what she started years before. It is up to Fianne to decide the fate of many and the future, facing many trials along the way.
This story was deeply touching, and many times I wished that I could smack some sense into some character or strangle another. Not many stories can induce real feelings in me, but I found myself close to tears or very happy at certain points within this book.
Juliet Marillier is a great writer, and I hope to see many more books by her in the future.
Rating:
Summary: Child of the prophecy
Review: This book was a wonderful read. I couldn't put it down. Formerly being restricted to books such as "Harry Potter", and "The Thief Lord", it is the best book I have ever read. I think it mentions some mature topics, but if you can handle those, it is an amazing reading experience. It is hard for me to go back to less well written books, because I keep on wishing that they are as good as Juliet's writing. I just can't say enough good things about it! I would highly recommend this book if you are looking for a hard, breathtaking book.
Rating:
Summary: Best of the Series
Review: I just finished reading Child of the Prophecy and I must say that I loved it. It was one of my favorite books of all time. The writing style was awesome and Fainne was deffinatly my favorite character. She was not blindingly perfect like Liadan of book 2, but not as meek and shy as Shorcha (book 1). Fainne was a complicated character who had to deal with a hopeless situation - this made her seem real. At first, I was nervous to read this book because of some of the reviews here on amazon, but the book was AWESOME!!! Even a week later, I could not stop thinking of some of Fainne's situations. As much as I loved this novel, I found the end somewhat lacking. My opinion of a happy ending would have been if Fainne could have lived her life at Sevenwaters with her love, but I guess Marillier's ending was the only one possible. This was a GREAT novel, but I found the ending less than satisfying.
Rating: 
Summary: Not as good as the other two, but still an EXCELLENT Series
Review: I have been waiting to get this book at a reasonable price and as soon as the paperback came out I snatched it up. The first two books in this series were amazing! This book came from a darker point of view. This book had less romance yet still written from a headstrong teenage girl's point of view, so it echoed a lot of feelings that were in the two other books in this series. This series seems to be all about Denying love until all hope is lost and the day is saved... then getting the love you always wanted. So it would have been nice to have a differant main plot, but this book was excellent in tying up the Sevenwaters trilogy. Overall if you read the other books then I can't imagine why you would even be debating reading this one, but if you are looking at this book for some reason with out reading the other two then I would not read this. I love this authors work (just from this series so far) and I can't wait to see more of it!
Rating:
Summary: The end of the beginning
Review: I read the first two books of this trilogy a while back and realized I hadn't finished it! So, I went out, got it and just finished reading it again. How wonderful to be transported back to the land of Erin, to be rejoined with all those of Sevenwaters. I found this book to be rich with visualizations, heartache, love, and twists and turns. In it, we meet Fainne, the daughter of Niamh (daughter of Sorcha) and Ciaran (son of Lady Oonagh and Lord Colum, Sorcha's father). Through Fainne, we learn of her hardship, of her strength, and of her otherworldly abilities. The tale is woven in such a way that you can easily get sucked back into the lives of those you have read about in the first two books. By the end of the book, I saw Fainne as a friend and wished I could have been there to help her in any way possible. Marillier does a fabulous job of tying up all the loose ends and bringing the trilogy to a satisfying conclusion. Definitely worth reading this entire series!
Rating:
Summary: A Book Profoundly Spellbinding
Review: Did Daughter of the Forest and Son of the Shadows leave you spellbound? Well, the brilliant tapestry that author Juliet Marillier has woven with her words of magic is completed with grace in her conclusion to her acclaimed Sevenwaters Trilogy. Fainne, the product of a forbidden relationship, is raised in solitude on the shores of Kerry, by her sorcerer/druid father, Ciaran. But, her isolation ends in a decision to meet the family she never knew, the family of her mother, the beautiful Niamh. She is sent on a quest, that her father has no knowledge of, a quest that will finally allow her grandmother, Lady Oonagh, to finally achieve the goal she had her eyes set on since she upset the Sevenwaters clan in Sorcha's time, using Fainne and Ciaran's strong father daughter relationship to bend her grand-daughter to her will. Fainne, despite her misgivings to her mother's family for forbidding the relationship of Niamh and Ciaran, finds herself becoming one of them, becoming the niece and grand-daughter that she always was. She is torn between destroying her new family, and killing the 2 people she holds dearest to her heart. It may be difficult to connect with Fainne, since she is very different from her aunt, Liadan, and grandmother, Sorcha, but soon enough, you'll find yourself identifying yourself with her emotions and thoughts. This book is full of heartache for fans as deeply connected to the trilogy as I am, but, you when you've finished, you realize that despite these things that happen, Child of the Prophecy is a book that keeps your eyes glued to it's pages and mystifies you with it's enchantments. Child of the Prophecy is an amazing conclusion to an enchanting trilogy.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Ending to a Good Series
Review: To me, Child of the Prophecy was a little more interesting than Son of Shadows. I also like how this book focuses on the perspective of the more evil characters. Then there were some parts that were tedious, which involved the same despisable, annoying characters mentioned in Son of Shadows. I also did not like the ending; I feel that there could have been some other alternative (although, I don't know if it would've produced good results). The ending was kind of hasty and it just didn't fit well with the trilogy, which started off with a retelling of the Six Swans. This is the very reason why I'm not inclined to read books that have more than one sequel; they usually never pull off. On the good side, Fainne was a very unique, interesting character. Yes, she does experience some inner conflicts, but it's great how she manages to find solutions by the end. I'd definitely recommend fantasy lovers to read this series though. The words are well-crafted and at times moving.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant!
Review: ___Unlike many of the reviewers so far, I found this book to be just as good, if not better, than the other two. Though the plot is not woven as tightly as in the others, and the family tree and Prophecy were left out, causing a bit of confusion at points, it seemed a better read. While "Daughter of the Forest" had a spectacular plot, and "Son of the Shadows" had an excellent romance, "Child of the Prophecy" played on the heartstrings more than the others.
___Marillier creates her characters so they not only interact well and with a fair degree of reality, staying in character (hallelujah!), but they also leap off the page in a more forceful way than the characters of many, many other books, so much that by the end of the last chapter, though there were no lengthy inner monolouges or overy-descriptive declarations like are usually found, you truly could feel for the characters. (And coming from someone as stoic as I tend to be, this is saying something.) :-)
___No, the book is not perfect. But it is one heck of a fantastic story... it's the kind that makes you dissatisfied with every other book out there, because there are VERY few that can match it. The whole series is like that, and I am very anxiously awaiting whatever Marillier comes up with next.
Rating: 
Summary: A different kind of heroine
Review: The conclusion to the Sevenwaters trilogy varies in tone from both its predecessors - I don't want to say it's darker, but it does deal with far more ambiguous definitions of good and evil, including a heroine who isn't nearly as pure and selfless as Sorcha and Liadan.
Said heroine is Fainne, the product of the incestous liason between Niamh, Sorcha's older daughter, and Ciaran, Sorcha's half-brother by the evil sorceress Oonagh. Fainne has been tutored by her father and grandmother in the arts of sorcery, and is sent to Sevenwaters to sabotage the Irish plan to take back the all-important Islands from the British. If you skipped a lot of the battle and strategy talk in the first two books, like I did, you might want to review them first, as they play a big role in the final 1/3 of this book. As I said, Fainne is a completely different sort from her aunt Liadan and her grandmother Sorcha, and there were times I felt Marillier let her protaganist off too easily. As Oonagh's pawn, Fainne is coerced/blackmailed into doing some truly horrible things, and even though she doesn't technically do them of her own free will a bit more accountability seems to be in order. I don't know why Marillier abandoned the references she included at the beginning of "Son of the Shadows", if anything they would be more useful here. Two items I felt would be indispensable: a family tree (to sort out the confusion created by the relationship between Niamh and her uncle Ciaran, which makes Sorcha, for instance, both Fainne's grandmother and aunt) and a copy of the Prophecy, which plays such a huge role in the later part of the book but which isn't repeated anywhere until the book is almost over. I couldn't relax as much with this book as much as I did with "Daughter" and "Son", which, despite the hardships faced by their main characters, had at least a few moments of love and beauty. There's none on display here, and the entire book feels tense and bleak because of it. So, while the writing remains as skillful as ever, I can't help but wish Marillier loved her characters as much as she makes her readers love them. While I have no objection to creating characters that are complex and have varied motives, abandoning beloved characters by the wayside just plain hurts. I wish I could give half-stars; "Child" deserves more than 3 but I just couldn't rate this one as high as the first two. Consider my rating a 3.5.
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