Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick makes me feel conflicted. On one hand, I like the newness of the plot and the way that readers have a mystery to solve and clues for which to look. On the other hand, it doesn’t feel like a cohesive novel and I’m left with asking, What is this book about? That’s why I give this a four out of the five. It’s not the writing that’s bad; it’s the organization and purpose of the novel.
Midwinterblood starts in the year 2073 with a man named Eric arriving on Blessed island in what we assume is off the coast of Norway (it’s Scandinavian in any case). He notices several things that put him on edge, including Merle. For some reason he feels he knows her, yet he’s never been to the island before and she’s never lived anywhere. Just before it all hits the fan, she tells him, “I found you”. And suddenly Eric realizes that he does know her because in a different life they were in love.
Boom. End of section one. What follows is a regression of time, from 2073 to 2011, to 1944, to 1902, to 1848, to the 10th century, to time unknown. I can’t say a whole lot about the plot because with each time period we learn more about the story of Eric and Merle until the conclusion. And this is what I liked. When I’m engaged in a text trying to figure out what’s going to happen next or looking for clues, I feel like I enjoy the novel better.
With this particular work, I felt that I put in a lot of time trying to figure out the mystery and the denouement didn’t really give me any catharsis or satisfaction. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the ending. It did what it needed to and it was heartwarming without being too saccharine. But I felt that I had put in more work than the ending really rewarded. This is where I’m conflicted. I want to say that this makes it a bad book, but in this case I can’t. The ending doesn’t spoil the whole book. It’s just more of a let down.
What redeems the ending is the writing. Each anecdotal time period is so well written it could almost stand on its own as a short story. And I do like the overarching plot. While I don’t like a lot of sappy romance, I do appreciate a realistic love story (yes, yes, I do have some feelings running through my icy veins) and Sedgwick did a good job keeping the story from devolving into a Nicholas Sparks novel. So overall all I can do is just give it four out of five stars and recommend the book to those that like a mystery, some romance, and a book that does something new with time and the way a novel progresses. But don’t take my word for it!
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