The Celtic Heart - Softcover

Kathryn Marie Cocquyt

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1567181562 ISBN 13: 9781567181562

Publisher: Llewellyn Publications, 1994

Synopsis

Follow the passionate lives of the Brigantes clan through the tumultuous events leading up to the Roman invasion of Britain. As their tribal way of life is threatened, the couragous Chieftain Solomon and the Druidess Saturnalia are tested by questions of good and evil.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

The dramatic conceit of this lengthy multi-generational Celtic love story is sadly undermined by Cocquyt's heavy-handed telling of it. Patterned at least in part after Marion Zimmer Bradley's Mists of Avalon, the epic delves into the lives and cultural dynamics of the Brigantes tribe during the Roman invasion of Britain. The author clearly devoted more attention to historical and religious (Druidic) details than to the narrative-the romance between the warriors Aonghus and Kordelina lacks tension, cohesion or consistency. In a work of this length, Cocquyt's staccato prose quickly metamorphoses from rhythmic to droning, and her language sometimes verges on the macabre ("then he fled for the company of his lambent-haired confidant"). Cocuyt's pastiche of Druidic dialogue is equally bizarre, lacking any truck with reality ("'Forgive me sweet lovers,' she whispered, looking adoringly at the two. 'What peace you must have found in this place together.'") Also troubling is a contradiction of the celebration of female autonomy and the sexual violence in the various rape scenes interspersed throughout the text. Over all, the story lacks the subtlety, nuance and draw to keep a reader slogging through the epic pages.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Llewellyn Publications
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 1567181562
• ISBN 13: 9781567181562
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 600