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Summary
Summary
Seven stories of passion and love separated by centuries but mysteriously intertwined--this is a tale of horror and beauty, tenderness and sacrifice.
An archaeologist who unearths a mysterious artifact, an airman who finds himself far from home, a painter, a ghost, a vampire, and a Viking: the seven stories in this compelling novel all take place on the remote Scandinavian island of Blessed where a curiously powerful plant that resembles a dragon grows. What binds these stories together? What secrets lurk beneath the surface of this idyllic countryside? And what might be powerful enough to break the cycle of midwinterblood? From award-winning author Marcus Sedgwick comes a book about passion and preservation and ultimately an exploration of the bounds of love.
This title has Common Core connections.
A Publishers Weekly Best Children's Book of 2013
A Kirkus Reviews Best Teen Book of 2013
Author Notes
Marcus Sedgwick was born in East Kent, England. He is primarily a young adult author. His books include She Is Not Invisible, White Crow, Revolver, and The Ghosts of Heaven. He won the 2014 Michael L. Printz Award for Midwinterblood. His first adult novel, A Love Like Blood, was published in 2014.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (7)
Publisher's Weekly Review
"I always prefer a walk that goes in a circle.... Don't you?" a woman named Bridget says to her daughter, Merle, at one point in this heady mystery that joins the remote northern setting of Sedgwick's Revolver with the multigenerational scope of his White Crow. Sedgwick appears to share Bridget's sentiment: as he moves backward through time in seven interconnected stories-from the late 21st century to an unspecified ancient era-character names, spoken phrases, and references to hares, dragons, and sacrifice reverberate, mutate, and reappear. Set on a mysterious and isolated Nordic island, the stories all include characters with variations on the names of Eric and Merle. In a present-day story about an archeological dig, Eric is a oddly strong, brain-damaged teenager and Merle his mother; in the 10th century, when the island was inhabited by Vikings, Eirek and Melle are young twins, whose story answers questions raised by what the archeologists discover. Teenage characters are few and far between, but a story that's simultaneously romantic, tragic, horrifying, and transcendental is more than enough to hold readers' attention, no matter their age. Ages 12-up. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Seven related stories chronicle life on a remote Scandinavian island, from the future (2073) backwards to the distant past ("time unknown"), gradually revealing Blessed Island's profound dependence on a strange drug and the island's disturbing history of human sacrifice. Each tale centers on two bonded souls -- reincarnated variously as family members, lovers, and intergenerational friends -- who reunite only to be wrenched apart again. Subtly changing pronunciation to reflect each time period, narrator Rhind-Tutt emphasizes the text's use of shifting language through the reverse progression of centuries. More importantly, Rhind-Tutt ably captures the emotional extremes of this unsettling novel: the uncanny recognition and tender reunion of the protagonists; the desperate fear and violence of their community; and the dark machinations of the island itself. katie bircher (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* In the year 2073, a reporter named Eric is sent to Blessed Island to research a rare flower called the Dragon Orchid. There he finds an insular community of mysterious villagers, a delicious tea that has him losing days at a time, and a beguiling girl named Merle. In just 50 pages, we reach a shattering conclusion and then start anew in 2011. An archaeologist is digging on Blessed Island, where he meets a quiet boy named Eric and his mother, Merle. So begins this graceful, confounding, and stirring seven-part suite about two characters whose identities shift as they are reborn throughout the ages. Sedgwick tells the story in reverse, introducing us to a stranded WWII pilot, a painter trying to resurrect his career in 1901, two children being told a ghost story in 1848, and more, all the way back to a king and queen in a Time Unknown. It is a wildly chancy gambit with little in the way of a solid throughline, but Sedgwick handles each story with such stylistic control that interest is not just renewed each time but intensified. Part love story, part mystery, part horror, this is as much about the twisting hand of fate as it is about the mutability of folktales. Its strange spell will capture you.--Kraus, Daniel Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
VAMPIRES have had their moment in young adult literature, as has dystopia, so it takes an idea of real originality to stand out from the vamp/love/fate/doom pack. In this book, the idea is sevenfold and the talented writer who works his considerable magic is Marcus Sedgwick, author of other acclaimed Y.A. novels including "White Crow" and "Revolver." The title of Sedgwick's most recent novel is "Midwinterblood," which is chilling and brilliant because it succinctly and evocatively hints at what's to come. Seven intense story lines stretch from the near future to the distant past, together forming a labyrinthine story of love, sacrifice and blood. Over and over again, a cast of vampires, Vikings and high priests encounter one another in various forms - with dire consequences for both their past and future incarnations. Does this sound confusing? It could easily be in different hands, but Sedgwick is too skilled a storyteller to let his readers experience any confusion or discomfort other than the discomfort he intends them to feel. An early scene in this darkly complex tale in which a young journalist, Eric Seven, is spread-eagled on a sacrificial altar is a prime and primal example. There's something about sacrifice scenes that plugs directly into the dark tribal corners of our brains, and this is the best one I've read in a long time. Eric is sent by his editor to meet the enigmatic inhabitants of Blessed Island who, rumor has it, have discovered how to distill the elixir of youth from a local orchid. He falls instantly in love with the more-than-pretty Merle, and in doing so, sets off a retrospective chain of events - ones that have already occurred in the past Eric and Merle, it turns out, have had many previous lives, and a thousand years ago were king and queen. Their love was cut tragically short, and so their souls have striven to be together across time. It's not easy to write funny, but I would say creating a sense of foreboding is even more difficult, especially sustained foreboding. After a while, readers get tired of creepiness and want the payoff. In "Midwinterblood" we get seven payoffs with expertly sustained dread between each tent pole moment. It's the literary equivalent of a roller-coaster ride with multiple peaks. Even though we know a stomach-churning drop is inevitable as we labor up the hill, it's no less terrifying when it happens. AND so we travel back through the epochs with Eric and Merle - through this century and the 19th, then briefly coming full circle to learn the fate of the Eric and Merle from the book's first vignette. Each tale is crammed with lyrical storytelling and could easily stand alone in any collection. Delightful passages like this description of a Viking village dry-docking a long ship for winter are sprinkled throughout: "What a night! The great ships towering above my head. The orange torchlight on the snow, black smoke coiling out of sight into the shadow-blue sky, the smell of the men, the smell of the salt water on the ships, the barnacles on their hulls like the stars in the heavens, our hands freezing to the ropes. The songs, the laughter, the curses." Writing like that speaks for itself - I admire it both as a reader and as a writer. (In fact, I may go off and try a Viking story.) I have never felt I was the target audience for doomed young supernatural lovers across time, but "Midwinterblood" is so much more than that. It is a tale for the ages, expertly spun and completely satisfying in its conclusion. If you have, like myself, until now spurned this dark corner of the bookshop with its clusters of glaring, misunderstood Goths, I urge you to make your way through the skinny jeans and Doc Martens that bar your way and pick up "Midwinterblood." It takes a few chapters for the story to soar, but is well worth the investment. It is something of a cliché for a reviewer to claim he devoured a book in a single sitting, and I have to admit that is not the case here. I began "Midwinterblood" late one evening in bed, dreamed about it through the night and finished it early the next morning. Eoin Colfer is the author of the Artemis Fowl series and of the novel "The Reluctant Assassin," to be published this spring.
School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-Midwinterblood is comprised of seven vignettes, with settings ranging from the future to Viking times and a variety of characters, including vampires, ghosts, and humans. Common to all the stories is the Scandinavian island, Blessed; a mysterious dragon orchid; and Eric and Merle, who play different roles in each story. This unusual book for teens (many of the stories feature adult characters only) goes backwards in time, beginning with a story that takes place in 2073. While each narrative could stand alone, combining them into one volume with the barest threads of connections (similar to Olive Kitteridge or Let the Great World Spin) makes the book noteworthy. The audiobook is expertly narrated by British actor Julian Rhind-Tutt, whose hushed English voice is perfect for the recording. Sedgwick's sparse prose is beautifully read with a haunting, dreamlike quality that lets listeners experience the horror, mystery, romance, and tragedy that abounds in the book. Melancholy yet lovely music briefly separates the vignettes.-Julie Paladino, East Chapel Hill High School, NC (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Guardian Review
Only two good books emerged from the recent epidemic of literary bloodsucking: The Radleys, Matt Haig's brilliant reimagining of the vampire myth as suburban soap opera, and Marcus Sedgwick's very different version, an attempt to return the undead to their central European peasant roots, My Swordhand Is Singing. Sedgwick is one of our finest writers, specialising in a kind of dark intensity which, if not always gothic, is usually gothish. Even his humorous writing for younger children is in the Addams Family mould. There's a vampire in Sedgwick's new book, and lashings of dark intensity. Midwinterblood consists of seven interlinked stories on the theme of love and sacrifice. The first, set in 2073, concerns a journalist called Eric, sent to uncover the truth about the mysterious Blessed Island, the childless inhabitants of which neither age nor die. Among the locals he meets a beautiful young woman, Merle, with whom he feels a powerful connection. We are very soon in Wicker Man territory, with our hero doped up on the local narcotic orchid, vaguely aware that something creepy is going on around him. Inevitably, he ends up on a stone altar, the local knife-wielding high priest poised above him, ready to strike. In the subsequent sections, each one dragging us further back in time, the characters of Eric, Merle and the priest recombine in various ways, playing out a story of Nietzschean eternal recurrence centred on the island. An archaeologist discovers the bones of an adult and a child in a Viking grave; an allied airman is shot down and parachutes on to the island during the war; an early 20th-century artist paints a huge, darkly symbolic mural; an undead Viking returns to claim his children from his cuckolded brother. Finally we end up in the dark ages, with a chieftain reluctantly offering up his blood to save the island from famine. Not quite finally - an epilogue returns us to 2073, and the fate of the last incarnations of Eric and Merle. The novel has Sedgwick's characteristically brilliant structural complexity: as the story moves backward through time, the individual narratives march forward through the seasons, marked by the names of the full moons - from the Flower Moon of midsummer, to the Blood Moon of midwinter. This serves to unify what might otherwise seem simply a collection of short stories. Although Sedgwick, a master of chiaroscuro effects, never fails to deliver up an atmosphere of veiled dread, some of the sections work better than others. The ghost story told in "The Hunter's Moon" is sweet and sad, and has a lovely, shivery twist. The "Viking" and "Dark Age" sections have the grim authenticity of My Swordhand Others are less successful. The story of the pilot shot down and sheltered by the islanders never really gets going, and the first story, which should propel the novel's backward momentum, stutters and falters. I did at times wonder if Sedgwick was playing too much to his core audience of long-fingered, spindly-legged goths and emos, for whom love is always eternal and doomed. But perhaps that shouldn't matter. Midwinterblood contains much that is riveting, strange and darkly enchanting. I read it in a single feverish sitting, late one evening, and drifted to sleep haunted by its vision of love and fate and history. Anthony McGowan's books include Henry Tumour (Definitions). To order Midwinterblood for pounds 7.99 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0330 333 6846 or go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop - Anthony McGowan There's a vampire in [Marcus Sedgwick]'s new book, and lashings of dark intensity. Midwinterblood consists of seven interlinked stories on the theme of love and sacrifice. The first, set in 2073, concerns a journalist called Eric, sent to uncover the truth about the mysterious Blessed Island, the childless inhabitants of which neither age nor die. Among the locals he meets a beautiful young woman, Merle, with whom he feels a powerful connection. We are very soon in Wicker Man territory, with our hero doped up on the local narcotic orchid, vaguely aware that something creepy is going on around him. Inevitably, he ends up on a stone altar, the local knife-wielding high priest poised above him, ready to strike. Although Sedgwick, a master of chiaroscuro effects, never fails to deliver up an atmosphere of veiled dread, some of the sections work better than others. The ghost story told in "The Hunter's Moon" is sweet and sad, and has a lovely, shivery twist. The "Viking" and "Dark Age" sections have the grim authenticity of My Swordhand - Anthony McGowan.
Kirkus Review
The Time Traveler's Wife meets Lost in this chilling exploration of love and memory. A dystopian start to the novel finds journalist Eric on remote Blessed Island in the extreme north in the year 2073. Tasked with gathering information on a rare orchid that is rumored to stop the aging process, he feels instant attraction to native islander Merle. As Eric drinks a strange tea brewed from the orchid, he begins to forget his life on the mainland yet remembers feelings for Merle. But how and when did he know her? Seven linked stories progress backward across centuries, following Eric and Merle's relationship as it takes on many forms, such as father/daughter or brother/sister, throughout time. Presented as different cycles of the moon, the stories feature various genres, from realistic and war stories to stories about ghosts and Viking vampires, ending with a hint of mystery to be revealed in subsequent chapters. This form, as well as the novel's reliance on adult protagonists, is a rarity in literature for teens. Inspired by Swedish artist Carl Larsson's controversial painting, Midvinterblot (translated as midwinter sacrifice), Sedgwick crafts these seven treats with spare, exact prose in which no word is unnecessary. Together, their reoccurring motifs of orchids, moons, blood and language--to name a few--reinforce Eric and Merle's enduring love. Haunting, sophisticated and ultimately exquisite. (author's note) (Fantasy. 13 up)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.