Mostly a repeat of the fairy tale story about sister who's brothers were swans and she broke spell by making them shirts.

What an amazing book! Set in two time periods, England and New England in 1689 Eliza’s stepmother has turned her eleven brothers into swans. In New York City in the early 1980’s, Elias is rescued from living on the street after his parents kick him out of their house for being gay by Sean, a musician and writer. In both time periods the protagonists must build lives for themselves, save their brothers, and themselves. It tells a similar story to the Sevenwaters Trilogy, but that was set in sometimes Pagan, sometimes Christian Ireland and England. It was a more superstitious time. When Eliza is accused of witchcraft and can not speak in her own defense in Puritan New England, things get dire. Elias and his friends cannot expect magical help. The author says in the note at the end that a central theme of the book came to her as a bus lumbered by with “Silence = Death” on its side.

Daughter of the Forest

I got far enough through this that I'll write a review, even though I didn't finish. I won't give a rating, though.

It's a very serious book. I found it a bit of a slog, more for reasons of taste than the author's ability. There are two storylines in different times (and genres; fairytale retelling versus realism with slight hints of magical realism starting to creep in). When I gave up at 61% the two stories, which alternate chapters, were finally starting to develop tenuous connections to one another that were not just thematic resonance or echoes of imagery, but I still wasn't really loving either one of them. They're beautifully, even lyrically told at times, but they're so very earnest and tragic and unrelieved by any lightness whatsoever that I couldn't stick it out to the end.

I guess I'm just not the audience for this one.

Based on The Wild Swans.

It's been a while, but what I do remember about this book (which I think I read twice, once as a teen and once as a young adult) was that while I liked it, I was annoyed that the young gay male narrator ends up dealing with AIDS in his community. I remember thinking: why can't he just be gay without the AIDS subplot?

one of my favorite books--i've bought copies for friends i thought should read it. two narratives--a retelling of a grim, though i don't recall if it's a grimm, fairy tale parallels a young man's experiences in new york in the early days of the gay community grappling with AIDS. i haven't reread it for a few years, but i recall there being several times when i was crying as read, but being so glad that i did. i think that it may resonate more for me, going to college as AIDS began and losing so many people who i went to school with, but i think that's a booster, not a necessity, to appreciating this book.

While I love Eliza's story (and practically any other retelling of the swans), I really feel like Elias' story should have been more about finding acceptance and love than being doomed with an incurable disease. I get it. That disease was *the* issue of the 80s and 90s. It's still an issue today, it's just not a purely gay issue and the book makes it seem that way.

I only gave three stars because unlike others I HATE the fact that it alternated chapters between then and now. It makes NO SENSE to overlap these two stories and while I would've loved to have read both stories, one at a time would make so much more sense in this instance. I like other parallel story books so it's not that, it's just that I feel that these two books are so dissimilar.

I am 100% sure I read this more than once when I was a teenager. I'm not going to rate it until I do a reread.

Fascinating story, connecting the plight of the gay community in the 1980s (when AIDS was first becoming known as 'the gay plague') with one of my favourite fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen. The two stories are weaved almost seamlessly together, with every other chapter being about Eliza in the 17th century and every other chapter being about Elias in the 20th century. The shifts never seem abrupt or disruptive, as one keeps finding parallels from one story line to the other. Names, places and events occur in both stories - some so subtle that I only notice them on my 3rd read through. It's a poignant and moving book that I'd recommend to anybody.

Yes five without doubt!

This is a very special book and brings hard sad facts together with a beautiful fairy tale ... I wholeheartedly recommend reading this and thank the author for writing it x

What a haunting an evocative beautiful book. I couldn't put it down. It was like reading two separate stories, yet they seemed interwoven. It takes incredible talent to work different plot lines, and different characters into one book and still keep the reader's attention.
I remember well the times she wrote about in the 1980s... We had friends who lived that carefree lifestyle, never realizing until too late the fatal error. Innocence woven into decadence! This book works!

Each story was so rich in content that you started each chapter with an "ah," here we go again... Such joy to return! I am blown away by this author and I will watch for her books in the future.

A good story, and interesting retelling of the Six Swans pieced together with the tale of men who began to die needlessly in the early 1980s of a mysterious disease that, at first, seemed only to strike gay men.

I enjoyed the retelling - there are 11 brothers, and they are disowned by their father as traitors, then cursed to be swans by their stepmother (who is satisfyingly horrid). Eliza is cast out for speaking on their behalf. When she finds her brothers, they strike out for the New World to find a better life, and it is there that Eliza discovers the way to save them. At one point, the youngest brother tells Eliza how ashamed he feels, how separate from man and God, how deeply he feels this is a curse.

The story of Elias was good but sad, for many reasons. I was aware of the AIDS epidemic and angry about how it got so bad so quickly - how the disease was ignored because of the victims, how it was misunderstood, how so many suffered horrible deaths - but it was still very distant. Elias' story made it much more personal, gave me a small glimpse of the way things worked then. Elias has to come to terms with being gay in a world where that is still not accepted, without family, and in a world where the people who accept him are dying.

The two stories are pieced together like a quilt - not woven. The pieces are different but they are part of the same thing. Elias learns that there isnt' anything shameful about being gay; the swans feel their curse is a shameful condition. Silence nearly costs Eliza her life; silence costs the lives of thousands of people. Fear and misunderstanding tear apart a family, a community in both stories. There is some suggestion of a family relationship - Elias' last name is Latham, and Eliza marries a Jonathan Latham after her brothers fly her to the New World to find a better life. It is hard to describe exactly how they fit, but they do.