Rating: 
Summary: Difficult read
Review: The story is great. The use of the Dark Goddess and the interactiones between the characters are beautiful. In other words, the research is excellent. But be aware that the book jump a lot between two ages and in years. Is a difficult read because is like seeing it from a god/dess perspective. Reincarnation is a big part of it.
Rating: 
Summary: Great sequel to the 'Daggerspell'
Review: This book is as great as 'Daggerspell'. The tangled Wyrd of Nevyn, Brangwen and Blaen souls start to unfold, but it is still far from resolving. Their souls reincarnate from life to life, each time a bit more untangled than before and in 'Darkspell' there is some of incarnations. The whole concept of dweomer, or in particular of human perception of five forces of universe as mindless wildfolk is stunning. Great reading time on enchanted language of Deverry.
Rating: 
Summary: Almost, but not quite
Review: This book is just the beginning. It is one of the best books I have read as far as style and content go. But it seems that the people who are not satisfied only look at this book. In my opinion the first three books, Daggerspell, Darkspell, and The Bristling Wood, are just setting the stage for what is to come. She did an excellent job of keeping the plot moving while keeping you interested. Also the way the characters souls are all intertwined and locked with each other puts an interesting spin to things. It is almost like watching a child growing and never knowing what to expect next. Overall I feel that the world she has created starting with Daggerspell will be a part of me forever.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Beginning
Review: This book is just the beginning. It is one of the best books I have read as far as style and content go. But it seems that the people who are not satisfied only look at this book. In my opinion the first three books, Daggerspell, Darkspell, and The Bristling Wood, are just setting the stage for what is to come. She did an excellent job of keeping the plot moving while keeping you interested. Also the way the characters souls are all intertwined and locked with each other puts an interesting spin to things. It is almost like watching a child growing and never knowing what to expect next. Overall I feel that the world she has created starting with Daggerspell will be a part of me forever.
Rating:
Summary: Darkspell is chillingly a very great book
Review: This book is one of the few books i feel are great fantasy. Katharine Kerr has a wonderful style of taking old Celtic lifestyle and turning it into a working fantasy that will keep you in thrall.
Rating: 
Summary: Why was this book revised?
Review: This edition of DARKSPELL is substantially different than the first version. It has the ending I always ended to write, rather than the one my editor at the time of the first version
wanted me to tack on. When it and DAGGERSPELL came out, they
were Doubleday hardbacks, which meant the rights to print the massmarket paperbacks were licensed to another company,
for 5 years a-piece. When that license expired, Doubleday,
now part of Bantam/Doubleday/Dell, brought the paperbacks
out in new editions. Since they had to reset the type anyway,
they offered me the chance to revise. I took it because
I'd learned a lot about writing in the interventing ten years
and wanted to correct some mistakes.
Rating:
Summary: Almost, but not quite
Review: This is the first Katherine Kerr novel I've read and I generally enjoyed it. She is a solid storyteller with no real weaknesses apparent in this book. She has a knack for creating memorable characters with credible motivations. The world she has invented is very well imagined and thoroughly integrated. The way in which magic functions in this world is very interesting. I also liked the ideas behind the Deverry religion. Kerr has obviously spent some time researching Welsh culture and history, and it has served her well here. The idea of a race or society from our world being transported part-and-parcel to another is a popular one in fantasy fiction, but it does provide for a believable background to the story. On the whole, I found the book to be quite engaging. The only thing preventing me from giving this book four (or more) stars is a strange underlying current of homophobia. The only gay characters are a pair of evil sorcerers who use rape to generate power and their sniveling victim. On at least two occasions, one of the main characters even reacts to the very idea of homosexuality with horror and disgust, leaving the reader to wonder where the author stands on the issue. I'm not saying that a book can't have a gay villain, of course, but with these characters, Kerr almost seems to make their sexuality part and parcel of their evil. As it is, however, it's as if someone had written a cop drama in which the only black or Hispanic character in the whole story was the violent murderer. If you can get past this small detail, or if such things don't bother you as much as they do me, you should enjoy this novel.
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