Charlotte Kersten

“But we’re not on our own anymore. We’re all here together, we’re all Lord Anluan’s people, the people of the Tor, and there’s enough strength in us to do the right things and make the right choices.”

Year published: 2009

Categories: Adult, fantasy, retelling (Beauty and the Beast)

Summary: this is a retelling of the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast set in Ireland during the time of the Norman invasions in the 12th century. Still grieving her beloved father’s death, Caitrin flees the abuse of her stepmother and stepbrother and finds refuge in the remote, eerie town of Whistling Tor. She can’t believe her luck when she is hired as a scribe up at the castle, but as she comes to know the castle’s ghostly inhabitants and its mercurial lord Anluan, she becomes drawn into the story of their tragic pasts and finds herself in the middle of their struggle for a better future.

My Thoughts: this is, fundamentally, a book about overcoming the darkness of the past to create a more hopeful future by standing together and believing in the possibility of unity and change. Over the course of the book you slowly see hope take root in the lost souls of Whistling Tor, and it’s a beautiful thing to behold. I think that is the lovely thing that is at the heart of Beauty and the Beast’s magic: one live spark of a soul can infuse new life and joy in even the most desperate of crumbling ruins; even a Beast that has known nothing but despair for ages can come to see that he is capable of becoming more than he already is through the example set by the right Beauty.

Caitrin is steadfast in the face of darkness, and that darkness lingers throughout the whole novel. Heart’s Blood is oozing with Gothic sensibilities – chilling mysteries, dark passions, hidden secrets and forbidding ghosts lurking in the misty forest:

“Oh God, oh God!” someone screamed, as behind the rider a swirling mass flowed out from under the trees around the courtyard, not mist, not smoke, but something full of gaping mouths and clutching hands, something with a hundred shrieking, moaning voices and a hundred creeping, pattering feet.

What I think is brilliant is that the horde is revealed to be monstrous only because they have come to believe themselves capable of nothing but monstrosity. Caitrin refuses to see them as anything less than her equals -individuals who are capable of both good and evil, and have control over their fates. She comes to know them individually, and they are delightful – a regretful commander, an unrepentant monk, a lost little girl, a steadfast soldier, all of whom have been trapped in an unending eternity of servitude:

Not creatures of ancient legend; not devils or demons. All the same, my skin prickled as I looked at them: here a woman carrying an injured child, there an old man with a heavy bag over his shoulder, his back bent, his limbs shaking; under an oak, a younger man whose fingers clutched feverishly onto an amulet strung around his neck. There were warriors and priests here, little girls and old women.

Her firm belief in their capacity for goodness ends up being infectious, and they begin to stir out of the despair that has gripped them for centuries. They maintain their sanity when Anluan leaves the grounds of the castle, when in the past they have always rampaged! They unite with the villagers and defeat the Normans! And, finally, they experience the release from their curse that they have been awaiting for centuries, and depart the mortal world.

At the same time that she gets to know the spirits of Whistling Tor, Caitrin begins the delicate process of getting to know the skittish and moody lord of the castle, Anluan. He is disfigured, disabled and mired in a sense of his own uselessness. Their relationship progresses slowly, with fits and starts and a gradual process of overcoming self-doubt and fear on both sides. This kind of hesitant romance between two uncertain lost souls is the type of romance that brings me the greatest joy. What’s more, Anluan and Caitrain encourage each other to be braver and stronger people:

“You could practice being brave a little at a time.”
“What do you mean?”
“Choose a small fear, show yourself you can face it. Then a bigger one.”

Isn’t that what a good partnership is, when it comes down to it?

Caitrin flees a horribly abusive home at the beginning of the novel, and she is marked by her history throughout the story. She criticizes herself with the same horrible words that were used against her and sometimes succumbs to self-blame and considers herself a coward and weakling for “allowing” herself to be abused and staying in the situation as long as she did:

“…the worst thing wasn’t Cillian’s fists or Ita’s cruel tongue. It was me. It was the way the two of them turned me into a helpless child, full of self-loathing and timidity.”

Her story shows the immense difficulty that many women have in leaving abusive homes, and the incredible danger inherent to that process. Her time at Whistling Tor helps her heal, and grow in self-confidence to the extent that she is finally able to face her abusers and reclaim what they stole from her. What I especially appreciated about this confrontation was that Caitrin does not try to face them by herself but is surrounded by people who care about her and have her back when she returns to her old home.

Another thing that I really appreciated about Heart’s Blood from a feminist perspective is its refreshing portrayal of lust. Caitrin’s desire for Anluan is so forthright and free of shame without seeming forced or over-exaggerated in any way. When they do sleep together, I think Marillier describes the scene with a really mature and touching sense of what sex is actually like for real people, especially given Anluan’s sense of self-doubt and insecurity about his disfigurement/disability:

“This had been real: real in its flaws and uncertainties, real in its small triumphs, real in its compromises and understanding.”

The book also has some sympathy for its villainess, and I was certainly left with the impression that the ultimate villainy was the way that Muirne had been groomed into her evil ways and then promptly used in the most horrible manner and disposed of by Anluan’s great-grandfather. In addition to Muirne’s acts of deception and cruelty, Caitrin reflects that ultimately she still has “the voice of a girl just come to womanhood, a voice of longing, yearning, promise: Look at me. See me. Love me.”

In the end, Heart’s Blood argues that that is what we all deserve.