“And her destiny lay between them. The Two lovers for whom she would trade her heart.”

Romance is in the air. Can you taste it? Can you smell it? While everyone is reading something spooky, all I want is an all consuming, heart wrenching love story. So little old me skips over to the library after placing this book on hold and waiting an agonizing amount of time to get it. Three days is way too long. I turn to the first page and…

It wasn’t that bad. To be honest, a lot of parts had me dying inside. The cringe worthy parts just outweighed the good ones.

Step 1: Don’t remember the Tristan and Iseult story. If you do, which luckily I didn’t, you’ll be squirming the whole time. I, at least, got the joy of the love scenes before all hell broke loose.

Told through the eyes of Iseult’s (or in the case of this retelling, Essy’s) handmaid, we see the story of Tristan and Iseult unfold. Finding a body on the beach one day, Branwen rushes to its aid not realizing that she’s not only saving the life of her enemy but also her enemy king’s nephew, Tristan. Safely escaping back home, Tristan returns to win the hand of Essy for his king while also wooing the girl of his heart, Branwen. But Branwen promises to protect her homeland, unlocking an untold magical power from her land.

Interesting…. Unless you know how all these stories end which leads to the cringe worthy moments.  

And all the yelling.

I can’t blame Perez there. The story goes where the story goes with no fault of her own. We can’t change what fate created all those years ago. But I believe that Perez put herself in a bad position. She made the choice to create such a story and littered it with stepping stones pointing the way to the end.

So unless you enjoy yelling at the page, telling each character in an explicit manner how stupid they are, you might not enjoy this book.

Step 2: (This is for all my writing friends out there) Don’t write a story destined for failure. I personally don’t want to know the ending ahead of time. Maybe Perez is lucky and there are enough innocent readers who’ve never heard of this classic story. I mean she did get published, but still. This isn’t like your typical Jane Eyre retelling. You know the one detail of the story, like Arthur pulling the sword from the stone, and the entire premise is ruined.

Is my rant over? Maybe….

“They loved while they burned and they burned while they loved.”

Down to the writing details. Perez took the classic structure and created, essentially, an interesting prequel. We have the entire story leading up till the moment… It can be hard skirting around no spoilers. In addition, Perez decided to use a very uncommon protagonist, Essy’s handmaid. This was her strength and her demise. Key to a good retelling is making the story unique enough that readers who know the premise can fully enjoy the differences. This can be tricky deciding what can be different and what features can be twisted and manipulated.

Not my cup of tea.

Perez also decided to tackle linguistics. She chose to create a loose rendering of ancient and Medieval languages. Did it lend to the story? I don’t think so. Many times Perez just references to the different languages spoken, not actually showing the words. Once she used it as a message between two of the characters, which did lend well, but other times she used it as a learning tool for Branwen. This was a nice touch but ultimately could have been left out. It tended to slow the story down and forced the reader to break flow and memorize the words. Choosing to add in a whole new language is not something to take lightly and unless you’re a langustics genius, maybe not one to tackle at all.

Though all Tristan and Iseult stories have some short of magical element, Perez decided to make magic a forefront of her story. I enjoyed this. It added an element that allowed the story to feel different. Like I said before, that’s essential to a good retelling.

“Not you without me, not me without you.”

Now to my last very important point - likable characters. Characters, even those we are supposed to love to hate, need to have some semblance of likability. This is ultimately Perez’s downfall. Essy, in my opinion, is nowhere near a likable character. Was that done on purpose to make the ending easier? If it was, then that was a bad idea. Unlikable characters can ruin a story, blocking out all the good parts. Do I see Branwen’s moments when I look at Sweet Black Waves? No. All I can remember is how much I really despised Essy’s character.

Essy is a spoiled brat the whole time. Not once does she do something outside of her character motivation, but it felt like she was created just to keep the story on track. Oh we need to get to point B, so make sure Essy steers the story that way. Even if you don’t know the original Tristan and Iseult story, I think Essy makes the ending very obvious. So obvious.

There was no foreshadowing. The whole thing was spelled out in bold, sky writing.

Ok…. so maybe I need a cool of period between finishing a book and writing a blog. But I want to tell you my first knee jerk reaction to a story. To be honest, this book made me very angry. Today’s feelings are 2.5 stars. There are some parts I liked. That one decision not so much - something I have to keep skirting around (stupid spoilers). And probably the real reason for my anger. The one artistic decision Perez made that I can’t talk about.

So far my current read is way more enjoyable.

I just hope karma doesn’t come back and bite me in the butt later.

Happy Reading

Love Kait

Reading Challenge: 85/100