The Forest House

WHAT
A Celtic fantasy love story that starts off as an abridged version of a reasonable book and by the end it feels like s a synthesis of a bad one. Eilan, a priestess of the Goddess, is torn between loyalty to her people and her love for Gaius, a soldier of the Roman Empire whose military power kills and enslaves them.

TLDR
- rushed prose, undeveloped scenes and character emotions and intents
- unsatisfying ending
+ discernible and elaborated plot, more then I can say of most of the books I've been reading

SUMMARY (brief)
While traveling in plain clothes trough a forest in Britain, Gaius is hurt and brought back to Eilan's home for help. After a few days or nursing his wounds, they develop a deep connection, a love that they seem to remember from a previous life.

Gaius tries to marry Eilan, but her parent refuse his proposal because of his great hatred for the Romans. Eilan then decides to live her life in celibacy serving the Goddess. Gaius follows into his father's plans and marries a prominent Roman woman, whose political connections could further his career.

ANALYSIS

The story showed promise in the beginning, but it soon became clear that something was missing. I double checked to see if I was not reading an abridged version, and the book is really long, but the events were exposed so quickly that I soon lost connection with all of the characters and the plot. It felt like the author was rushed into finishing the book, and this became even more apparent in the end.

Among my criticisms of underdeveloped elements:

- the Druids were portrayed as mean old men for no apparent reason other then being men. This may bear some historical accuracy, but they started out as reasonable characters and soon the author stopped defending their motivations. While in The Mists of Avalon they are compromising, understanding and wise, here they are just oppressive and overbearing tools.

As one example, at the start of the book it is established that in order to maintain the Forest House existence, which holds the sacred priestess of the Goddess, the Druids had to make some concessions. They vowed to not aid the rebels, to preach peace for the population, and the priestess were required to obey a vow of chastity.

The women in the story were constantly complaining about this “preposterous” oppression enforced on them, as if the Druids had a say in the matter. They know what happened to the previous priestesses Sanctuary, and are trying to prevent another slaughter and dessacration of their women and holy sites.

- The same goes for Dieda. I can see why she would be bitter, but there is a whole chunk of character development skipped here. She blames others for her problems, that's fine. But how does she goes from being a loving sister to a hateful bitch?

- In one scene, this woman Eilan goes from a lifetime of hating a men Gaius to entrusting her son to him. There is no explanation given, and this took place in about one page:
“What, you want to take part in our son's life? Never, I would rather die!
A few paragraphs latter...
Oh well, you better take care of him, I know you will do just fine”

- The Druids are quick to condemn Eilan to death when she refused to call for a rebellion instead of peace. She explained that she is an oracle to the Goddess that they all serve, but by some reason the Druids decide not to trust her. It is fine for them to loose faith in their god, but this was not explored at all.

- Also in that scene, too much was left in the air. Eilan “felt like a lightning hit her” and then... stuff happened? This could have been the climax of the book, instead it was the end, exposed in a few lines of text. This is where you would have expected the “evil characters” to be punished, to see the consequences of their actions.

On the thing I liked, it still shows some of the flare the author used in Mytst of Avalon. That writing style is still faintly present, the Celtic fantasy is actually well laid out, with the women dedicating their lives in adoration, year after year performing the great festival of Beltane, where they channel the Goddess and answer the questions for the members of their tribe.

The plot is fairly extensive, many things happens throughout the book. There is the bits of historical facts like even though they blamed the Romans for all their pain, the tribes of Britain waged war constantly among themselves before they were conquered.

Interesting ideas but simple and slow plot.