Rating: 
Summary: This bites
Review: This is a moronically simple tale full of ludicrous characters and plot-lines, told in a clumsy, heavy-handed style. The main character is dumb, beautiful, and ever-conscious of the rights of women, and he also happens to be a berserker. As was the case with Daughter of the Forest, the author seems to think it's important to let us know how well-endowed her male characters are, e.g., "I see why they call you 'the little ox' ! ".
Rating: 
Summary: A feeble light shines in the Dark Ages...
Review: This is the story of a brave Pictish (Scottish) girl who falls in love with a dumb, strong Norse invader. I love Marillier's writing, but this book could have been so much more! It comes across as a very pale imitation of her first novel, Daughter of the Forest. Do yourself a favor and read that one instead.
Rating: 
Summary: Good read
Review: Ulf, already a Viking warrior Wolfskin, learns about a magical place across the sea. Believing there must be plenty of treasure and a chance to do honorable deeds in Thor's name, he decides to sail for the Orkney Islands. Young Eyvind sees this as his chance to become a Wolfskin and pleads his way onto the crew.They reach this land, but find friendly people led by a kind-hearted king Angus who are willing to share their bounty with the "invaders". Eyvind meets the monarch's niece, the seer Nessa and falls in love but though attracted she does not trust the newcomers. Eyvind's new happiness is tested when his heart friend, Somerled, invokes their childhood blood oath of lifelong loyalty. Somerled's demand places Eyvind in a tug between honor and
love exacerbated by a disease that ravages the natives Folks, but not the Norsemen which leading to enmity and perhaps war between the two groups. Juliet Marillier takes her audience to the same Dark Ages that is the focus of many of her novels with this deep gritty tale. WOLFSKIN takes no prisoners as the audience observes a hostile world even when the two groups forge an alliance. The key to this powerful historical is the cast as Eyvind, Nessa, and Somerled seem genuine and their "triangle" makes for great insightful reading. Ms. Marillier shows why she is among the top writers of historical fantasy with a fabulous opening novel that will excite readers with its depth. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: Powerful
Review: WOLFSKIN is the fourth offering from extraordinary historical novelist Juliet Marillier, and if she can continue in the tradition she has established thus far, I have hope for many more. Ms. Marillier has a gift for spinning tales such as one might hear from a particularly skilled storyteller of old, sitting with friends and family around a fire on a long winter night hundreds of years ago. We don't have many such professional bards today, but we have not lost our taste for good stories, nor our need of people to tell them. In our modern world, the printed word has reached its highest known distribution, and our modern bards have turned to that medium to entertain and to teach us with their tales. Ms. Marillier's Sevenwaters Trilogy (which, if you have not yet, you must read) is a collection of such powerful stories, and her newest offering, WOLFSKIN, is nearly as good. The unlikely hero of the story is a Viking "Berserker," one of the legendary Norse warriors who went shrieking into the forefront of battle, blindly and lethally courageous. Its heroine is a young woman -- a daughter of the royal line and a priestess of the mysteries -- who belongs to an ancient people of the Orkney islands, a people so shadowed by history that we know little about them today. Other characters include the brave and tragic king of the Orkneys, a Viking chieftain with a bold dream of settlement in a far off land, and the warrior's clever and dangerous friend, who has saved his life and sworn with him a bond of brotherhood in blood, and who does not hesitate to call in his debts. How these characters come together is a long tale of friendship, sorrow, rage, grief, terror, magic, and deepest love. It is an exploration of the value of life and the strength of a promise made. Compared to other works of historical fiction, WOLFSKIN ranks with the very best. Compared to the Sevenwaters Trilogy, which is perhaps the most powerful and compelling fiction I have read, it is very slightly lacking. Some elements of plot seem to pass too quickly, and the reader is left wondering why, if they were so important, they were over with so little ceremony. Sometimes that effect seems to me intentional, meant to make us feel as the characters do, but at others it disrupts the flow of an otherwise excellent story. As for the characters, they lack nothing; they live in your mind even when the book is not in front of you, and as usual what makes Ms. Marillier's tale so powerful is the sheer emotional impact. If you spend time with this book and you have feelings, you will cry. You may laugh and sigh and otherwise feel what goes on, but Ms. Marillier specializes in sorrow, and this book cannot be experienced without tears -- of eyes or heart, or both. I would recommend plenty of time and perhaps some tissues to hand as you really get into the story. If you are separated from a loved one, you might want to wait until he or she is back with you before you begin; this is a tale of many kinds of heartbreak. It's easy to think I'm exaggerating here, but the power of human emotion is perhaps the greatest on earth: it makes us what we are, and shapes our world and our lives. This story is about that, in a way, and our reactions to it, and to others, are about that power, too.
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