I picked up a copy of The Bristling Wood about three days ago, having already read the first two, Daggerspell and Darkspell, and was interested in reading more. The first half of the book was about as I expected, remaining constant in the quality and content of her previous works, and was enjoyable. The second half, however, had a rather nasty surprise in store for me.

I don't want to give anything away, in the event that someone truly wants to read this book. However, I was very upset with the events that occurred in the second half of the book, and am rather displeased with Kerr for treating her characters (specifically Jill) in such a fashion. Adding that to the fact that it has a rather definite cliffhanger ending, so that the events I was upset about never really were resolved, I must say I came away from this book feeling a fair amount of actual, real anger, something that no other book has managed to cause in me. I literally threw the book aside, when I was done, because I was so upset. I'm unsure, still, whether or not to continue in the series, as I no longer know whether it's the kind of story I want to be reading.

For all of that, I will admit that it is a well-written, gripping tale, and I hope that her other readers will not be so adversely affected.

Ever wondered about the history of the silver daggers, here it's revealed, and of course Nevyn is somewhat involved as well as Otto the smith. In the present we still follows Rhodry and Jill on their path as silver daggers, but mighty forces is loose so that their "quiet" life on the road does not last for long. As I see it this book is an unfinished tale, wheras the earlier ones had a sort of ending. I don't mean to say that this is bad, because I can hardly wait to start on the next book.