Moon Song | a book review

If you are familiar with the stories of Tristan and Iseult you will be aware of the similarities. Its main characters Tristan, Isoldé, and Mark are involved in a bit of a love triangle which is light-heartedly mentioned by Isoldé’s character. The relationship between Mark and Tristan is reversed in Moon Song, as Tristan is Mark’s mentor. In the original stories, Tristan is King Mark’s nephew. Isoldé is married to Mark (as in the myth) and does find herself connected to Tristan and drawn to him. I won’t expand more on that because you will just have to read the book to find out more! 😉

Tristan is a musician who works with the Faer folk ways. When he takes his own life he leaves behind a song unwritten, and without the song, the threads that connect humans and their world to the Otherworld will be no more. Isoldé meets Mark, whom Tristan had raised and mentored and there is immediately an electric charge between them. Isoldé, upon entering Mark and Tristan’s world, finds that she is the key to bringing Tristan back from The Isle of the Dead to finish writing his last song, Moon Song, in order to prevent the worlds from existing no longer.

I quite enjoyed reading this book. The descriptions of the land and it’s inhabitants are so vivid that at night when I went to sleep I dreamed of little woodland creatures and fey folk. I wanted to look out my window into my little back yard and see the hair-girl hop by! It was quite wonderful indeed.

Elen has a gift for story-telling. By weaving the story of Tristan, Isoldé, and Mark together with the inhabitants of the Otherworld she reminds us of our connection to things we cannot see, to energies that exist around us and in us, to loves lost and lives renewed. She also reminds us of how these threads that bind are being broken as we become more absorbed in our technological world.

Elen Sentier is a writer and teacher of British Shamanic traditions and grew up absorbed in the ways of the moors. I feel as though she has written a bit of herself into this book, as the locations mentioned are places where she herself grew up. If you want to read more about Elen and other books she has written you can visit this page. I have a couple of Elen’s books on my to-read list and cannot wait to read them! Perhaps you should too! 😉