The Iron Tree by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

I read 'the Iron Tree' in the hope that Cecilia Dart-Thornton would have honed and harnessed the not-inconsiderable talent and unique creative vision she demonstrated in her flawed but fun "Bitterbynde Trilogy", but I must say, I was somewhat disappointed by the result. She is, undoubtedly, an author of significant promise - she possesses a rare gift for description, a strong imagination, and can always be counted on to conjure up a glistening and elaborately detailed fantasy world that is rich, colourful, idiosyncratic and mysterious. At times, her writing glows with a genuine mythic grandeur, and is nothing short of spell-binding. Sadly, however, the world she here describes does not possess quite the same vivid intensity as the "Bitterbynde" setting. Everything feels just a little bit wilted, and seems to have diminished rather in scope and complexity - perhaps because she isn't really saying anything that she hasn't said before.

I have more of a stomach for purple prose than most. If you like your writing sharp, clipped and to-the-point, I'd advise you not to stray within a hundred yards of any one of Dart-Thornton's books. You'll be in tears by the third page, and probably homicidal by the twenty-third. Personally I tend to enjoy detailed descriptions, and the use of obscure language (I'm a Gormenghast fan) but even by my standards this novel can be exasperatingly long-winded at times - and the tone occasionally errs on the sweet and syrupy side, which I don't much care for. The attention to detail was impressive, but sometimes annoying: apparently no object is too small or insignificant to warrant half a page of gleeful rhapsodising. And you can never simply be told that something is 'red' - it has to 'glow a hot vivid vermilion' or 'scintillate with a searing scarlet flame' or even 'blaze and coruscate limpidly with a ravishing rubicund sheen like a scorching sanguine satsuma' (for those unfamiliar with her work, believe me, I'm only half-joking). It's a tricky matter because one of Dart-Thornton's main strengths is the genuine artistic flair with which she uses the English language, and often it works, but sometimes the effect is one of self-indulgent pomposity, and it detracts from the quality of her writing as much as it enhances it. Her descriptions would be infinitely more effective if she showed a bit of restraint and didn't constantly assail the reader with a ceaseless battalion of fancy adjectives. I frequently caught myself inadvertently skimming over pieces of very prettily written prose I usually would have enjoyed, simply because there were pages and pages of it and I'd lost all sense of focus. I found the same with the Bitterbynde Series at times, but as the story itself was a lot more engrossing and complex than this one I found it easier to forgive.

The basic plot is half-decent, and the pacing is fine. The story does have its interesting moments, and as always, Dart-Thornton very cleverly blends a multitude of fascinating mythical creatures and concepts into her delightful fantasy landscape. Anyone with a passion for British and Irish folklore would gain at least some pleasure from reading this book. She handles mythical symbols with deftness and finesse, and it is here that her considerable descriptive flair serves her most effectively.

My greatest criticism of the novel, I'm sorry to say, is that the character development is nothing short of frightful. This was the one aspect of Dart-Thornton's writing that I'd really hoped she'd improved upon since Bitterbynde, but if anything, her grasp of character seems to have deteriorated. I don't think creating realistic protagonists is beyond her ability, as some of the peripheral characters were actually quite interesting (if underwritten) but the hopelessly over-romanticised hero and heroine were about as wooden as it's possible to be without literally being made of, well, wood. I don't wish to be unduly critical - they weren't hateful or obnoxious characters by any means, but unfortunately Jared and Lilith (whose dreary and overblown romance constituted the greater part of the narrative) are nauseatingly goody-goody, and are exactly the kind of bland, lacklustre, derivative, cardboard idiots I would expect to find in the stories of a teenage fanfiction author. They never for one second felt like real people, with their cliched "tragic and mysterious" backgrounds, complete lack of ordinary human character flaws, and of course their utterly gratuitous beauty, of which we were informed every five minutes. If I was ever to read the book again (unlikely) I'd have to keep a tally of how many times Dart-Thornton gloats bizarrely over Jared's bronzed, toned torso and his magnificent facial features and his "spice-coloured" hair, constantly bashing the reader over the head with his miraculous gorgeousness using a progression of ever-stranger and less likely synonyms. The annoyingly saccharine Lilith falls foul of the same treatment, and by the end I was thoroughly tired of hearing about her impossibly waif-like physique, glorious sapphire eyes and ridiculous-sounding butterfly eyelashes. Yawn. Their romantic relationship was fatally tedious and unconvincing - just two pretty fence-posts falling in love. I really wish I was exaggerating here, but I truly cannot stress enough how badly these characters were dealt with.

So to sum up, I gave this novel 2/5 because Cecilia Dart-Thornton is a unique and talented writer, who occasionally hits gold but generally doesn't use her skills to their maximum capacity. This story has its nice moments, and is entertaining enough to serve as brain-candy for someone who either adores pretty descriptions, is fascinated by folklore, or is such a hopeless romantic they can enjoy just about any story in which two people fall madly in love, regardless of the actual quality and depth of the love-story in question. That said, the protagonists are unforgivably dull and impossible to relate to, and the few characters with promise (the ones with more flawed - and therefore realistic - personalities, that is) are pushed to the fringes. If you absolutely loved the Bitterbynde Trilogy, you'll probably enjoy this to some extent, but be warned, this novel isn't of equal calibre to its predecessor. If, like me, you kind-of guiltily enjoyed Bitterbynde but still had to roll your eyes at it a fair bit, you're probably better off steering clear of this one altogether. There are so many better books out there that I really wouldn't recommend reading this one unless you feel it's to your particular taste and you really, really like the sound of it. Everything that was cloying, frustrating, laborious, silly and occasionally unsatisfying about Bitterbynde is also ostensibly present here in 'the Iron Tree' - and it's multiplied tenfold.

This story revolves around the hidden identity of a young desert boy, Jarred, and the secret of the Iron Tree in Cathair Rua. When he sets out to discover the world Jarred meets Lilith, a young woman from the Marshlands, and falls in love with her. He decides to stay wtih her rather than continue with his adventurous friends, but the two lovers cannot live in calm and peace of mind for as long as a curse hovers over their heads. Lilith's family line has been doomed to endure failed marriages as whenever they wed one of the couple dies young and the other goes mad. Jarred believes his immunity will protect him from this fate so they marry anyway, but is he right?
I think that the idea behind 'The Iron Tree' is great, however there did not seem enough meat to the story to warrant such a lengthy book. What started well with exciting events, humour and some well-written new characters and places quickly deteriorated into a dull piece of writing that I had to force myself to finish. 'The Iron Tree' is pretentious with old-fashioned language which added nothing to the world. I was constantly bombarded with lengthy descriptions which drew focus away from the main plot to unnecessary details, and lists (e.g. items in a room) which I learnt to skin over.
A fantasy world will always have foreign names and places, however I felt that these were overdone in this book. Too many names to remember yet they and other ideas were not original, merely what exists in the real world with small, but obvious modifications. the characters themselves seemed to have everything too easy and the few conflicts that they faced were overcome too easily. This is the first fantasy book in a long time that I have not enjoyed or thought well-written. I felt the author had decided one day to write a book and plunged straight in rather than working out how to make her idea work well. Do not bother reading this book unless you are very, very bored.