Book Review: Dreamer's Pool

I finished up another book this week.  This one is for week 39, a book with a form of punctuation in the title:  Dreamer's Pool by Juliet Marillier.

Book Summary: Award-winning author Juliet Marillier "weaves magic, mythology, and folklore into every sentence on the page" (The Book Smugglers). Now she begins an all-new and enchanting series that will transport readers to a magical vision of ancient Ireland...

In exchange for help escaping her long and wrongful imprisonment, embittered magical healer Blackthorn has vowed to set aside her bid for vengeance against the man who destroyed all that she once held dear. Followed by a former prison mate, a silent hulk of a man named Grim, she travels north to Dalriada. There she'll live on the fringe of a mysterious forest, duty bound for seven years to assist anyone who asks for her help. 

Oran, crown prince of Dalriada, has waited anxiously for the arrival of his future bride, Lady Flidais. He knows her only from a portrait and sweetly poetic correspondence that have convinced him Flidais is his destined true love. But Oran discovers letters can lie. For although his intended exactly resembles her portrait, her brutality upon arrival proves she is nothing like the sensitive woman of the letters.

With the strategic marriage imminent, Oran sees no way out of his dilemma. Word has spread that Blackthorn possesses a remarkable gift for solving knotty problems, so the prince asks her for help. To save Oran from his treacherous nuptials, Blackthorn and Grim will need all their resources: courage, ingenuity, leaps of deduction, and more than a little magic.

My Review/Rating: 4 stars.  Another one by this author I loved.  I had actually read the second book in this series, and backtracked to this one which takes place before the other one I had read.  I love how this author skillfully combines Celtic mythology and fairy tales, and breathes life into the characters set in this time period.  Her characters are beautifully created and one of my favorite tidbits is that she can so nicely slip back and forth between Blackthorn's voice and Grim's voice as the story unfolds.  I loved having more of their back story, and the tale of Prince Oran and Lady Flidais is everything you'd want a classic fairy tale to be.  A recommended read and I plan to pick up more of this author's work in the future.