The premise of the sisters hunting for their mother was dropped fairly quickly into the novel and wasn’t picked back up until the end of the book. While it was the instigating force of the plot, it wasn’t the driving force and for much of the book we are simply following the lives of these siblings. As a result, I wasn’t as interested in the middle of the book where we change focus.

I thought the assault plotline came out of nowhere, but I really did not like the inclusion of the speculative element. Characters from history appear and talk to our characters briefly, appearing a few times. It’s not too often, so if its not an element you enjoy you can quite easily move past it. In fact, I didn’t even realise that was what was happening at first. If it had been a bigger element of the plot I think it would have worked well but in the end I thought it was just a bit ill-fitting.

This book had great writing, and I enjoyed the characters. I just think there were too many elements half committed to and if there had been a bigger focus on just a couple the book would have worked better for me. As it is the book felt like it was missing an identity.

A huge story, a beast of a book. One that you can sit with for a whole month, savor every word. A huge array of characters that will keep you company.

Well I finished it - but in a 'I have got this far, I will sit down and read, and then it will be over' fashion. I was initially interested in the characters, but then they got so away with the fairies, self obsessed and unlikeable that my interest fizzled away. This really is not a book for me - it rambled, it got sidetracked by Walter Raleigh, and it went one and on. I would say best forgotten, but I could not really tell you what happened and I only put it down 5 minutes ago.