Maybe people who know the story will have noticed things I didn’t, or squeal over how certain bits were interpreted.Įven without knowing the story, I pretty much immediately worked out who one of the characters really was and how that played into the ending. (I have no idea what constitutes a murder ballad vs “regular” tragic poetry from the Early Medieval period, but it sounds super cool!) I’ve never read or heard of that ballad, so I have no idea if it’s a close retelling or not. This book feels really grounded in research and fact thanks to small details about objects and buildings (and yet another to add to the “I doubt whoever wrote the school curriculum for this period had much expertise in the Dark Ages” list!)Īpparently it is a retelling of a “murder ballad” called The Twa Sisters. I am certain it isn’t, but that’s my enduring impression of pre-Norman England from school “eh, we think it was like this, but there’s a lot of feeling around in the dark”. You don’t really learn much about it in school, and the way its taught makes you feel like it’s largely guesswork. I liked how the final chapter acknowledged that. The book managed to give you hope that the Britons would endure and ultimately win despite even the vague history of the period I know. She really brought pre-Saxon England to life, a world lived in the shadow of the former Roman Empire, without the resources and technology to keep it up. Lucy Holland (who has also written secondary world, epic fantasy under Lucy Hounsom) manages to capture this world of uncertainty and conflict perfectly.

In the British Isles, it was a time of fragment kingdoms and conquest, of tensions between the older religions and the expansion of Christianity. SISTERSONG is a book set in the Dark Ages, when we have don’t have much surviving written text (comparative to other eras) to construct a picture of what happened after the fall of the Roman Empire. It’s a story that will shape the destiny of Britain. Riva, Keyne and Sinne must take fate into their own hands, or risk being tangled in a story they could never have imagined one of treachery, love and ultimately, murder. But change comes on the day ash falls from the sky, bringing Myrddhin, meddler and magician, and Tristan, a warrior whose secrets will tear the siblings apart. And Sinne, the spoiled youngest girl, yearns for romance.Īll three fear a life of confinement within the walls of the hold – a last bastion of strength against the invading Saxons. Keyne battles to be seen as the king’s son, when born a daughter. Riva, scarred in a terrible fire, fears she will never heal. In the ancient kingdom of Dumnonia, King Cador’s children inherit a fragmented land abandoned by the Romans.

Sistersong book review