Daughter of the Forest is written by Juliet Marillier, and it is originally published in 1999, my copy is 455 pages long.
Daughter of the Forest is the historical fantasy novel, which I believe is somewhere in between adult and young adult.
It is loosely based on the Celtic myth of the six swans. This novel follows our main character Sorcha who is the seventh daughter of the lord of seven waters. Seven waters is a place set in the forest in almost Ireland like setting. Sorcha grows up with her six brothers in a very free will environment. Sorcha mother died in childbirth, and one day her father decide to remarry. The woman he decides to get married to someone none of the brothers likes and even Sorcha didn’t like her either. This woman has an evil sorceress like character and all the siblings feel that something very bad is going to happen. One day that thing ends up happening and there is this curse.
The entire story is about Sorcha who is trying to break this curse and in order to do that she has to do certain things.When it comes to world building, the first thing you are going to notice the amazing celtic Irish setting which is very beautiful and evocative. The writer paints a very vivid image of these forest, lands and other places Sorcha goes to and we spend so much time in them that we really begin to get this atmosphere about them which is really fantastic. The magic in this novel is inspired by the Celti mythology and Sorcha and her brothers also have magical ability which is really interesting. The magic system is not explained, but in this case I think it is ok because in a lot of ways the magic is completely entwined with the nature and with the complete atmosphere of the world, so it almost makes sense why the magic is not explained.
Juliet Marillier writing is so beautiful, I think it is absolutely fantastic how she creates these amazing lyrical prose.
The story is slow paced and predictable, and the plot is such that you will know what is coming in the near future. Although there are some loose threads, but it doesn’t seem that you have to immediately pick up the second novel, so i think you can read this as a stand-alone novel in a lot of ways.