“…a story that’s simultaneously romantic, tragic, horrifying, and transcendental is more than enough to hold readers’ attention, no matter their age.”– Publishers Weekly
This week we are taking a look at award winning author Marcus Sedgwick’s Midwinterblood. Meghan, our children’s buyer, loved this book and wanted to share it with an adult audience. Since it’s release in Feb of 2013, Midwinterblood has received five starred reviews. 
“Part love story, part mystery, part horror, this is as much about the twisting hand of fate as it is about the mutability of folk tales. Its strange spell will capture you.” – Booklist, starred review
“”The Time Traveler’s Wife” meets “Lost” in this chilling exploration of love and memory . . . Haunting, sophisticated and ultimately exquisite. “ — Kirkus, starred review
One of our kids booksellers, Courtney, absolutely adored Midwinterblood. Check out her review:
“Since I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by history. I wouldn’t say I’m a “buff.” I don’t spend hours researching it. I don’t collect artifacts and I don’t participate in reenactments. But my dad instilled in me a sense of wonder about the people who lived and walked on this earth before we got here, and he always had the best time watching movies with my brother and me and explaining the history in them, or taking us on road trips across the U.S., stopping at important Civil War or colonial sites. He wanted us to know the land we came from, its story, why America is the way it is, and what happened to get it here.
When I travel, it’s the same for me now. In Ireland, while exploring the region known as the Burren, I was shown ancient burial sites that had remained standing for thousands of years. I later visited sites of now-ruined towns that had survived numerous Viking raids, and even saw the precursors to cities in Ireland–“ring forts” of earthen walls where men and women sheltered from the elements and from enemies. All of this served to build in me a respect for the land and for the people who settled it millennia ago.
In his book Midwinterblood, Marcus Sedgwick tells the history of the isle of Blessed in a series of seven stories. Blessed is a fictional island in what seems to be the Scandinavian region, but its location is never concretely identified. Strange things happen on this island, and as each story is told, the reader becomes ever more curious because Sedgewick tells its history backwards. It begins in 2073 with Eric, a young journalist who is drawn to the island by rumors that people living on the island never age nor die. When there, he meets Merle and is immediately drawn to her. But neither Merle, nor the helpful stranger Tor, nor anyone else he meets on the island is as transparent as they seem, and Eric begins to lose sight of why he came to the island.
The mysterious events of the first story are never fully explained, but as the stories move back in time, new secrets are revealed and new mysteries crop up, until you, as the reader, are thoroughly engrossed in the novel because your questions must be answered. What is the strange, dragon-shaped flower? Do the people of the island really live forever? Why are people with similar names magnetically drawn to the island from far away? Why does it seem like the same people are doomed to live multiple, tragic lives?
The end result is an intelligent novel that, though labeled for teens, can be enjoyed by anyone. Midwinterblood is cryptic and creepy, but Sedwick’s prose is elegantly simple in a way that compliments his provocatively complex story line. It’s a book that celebrates the history of a land and its people, and the love that binds them together across impossible distances. It is a book that makes the reader shiver, and it has a dramatic lure that cannot be resisted. It is dark and beautiful to its revelatory conclusion, and readers will be irresistibly drawn in by the isle of Blessed from the first page to the last.”
BookPeople 