Daughter of the Forest
core novel 1999 Sevenwaters
Record
| First published | 1999 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.29 (73,350 ratings, collected 2026-09-14) |
| Page count | 554 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780312848798 |
| Internal chronology | 1 |
Synopsis
Daughter of the Forest, the first novel in the Sevenwaters series, is set in early medieval Ireland and follows Sorcha, the youngest child and only daughter of Lord Colum of Sevenwaters, raised alongside her six older brothers in the forested lands their family rules. When Colum remarries a mysterious and manipulative woman named Lady Oonagh, Sorcha's brothers fall under a curse that transforms them into swans, leaving Sorcha as the only one who can save them. She learns that breaking the enchantment requires her to sew six shirts from a painful, nettle-like plant called starwort, all while remaining completely silent until the task is finished, unable to explain herself or call for help even as the political and magical dangers around Sevenwaters continue to close in on her family.
Where it sits
- Universe: Sevenwaters
- Series: Sevenwaters core; position 1 of 6 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Juliet Marillier
Awards (verified)
- Alex Award (Alex Award), 2001: won
- Aurealis Award (Best Fantasy Novel), 1999: finalist; Corrected from a secondary-source 'win' claim; the Aurealis Awards' own compiled results list this as a finalist.
Notes
- From the series record (Sevenwaters): One continuous three-generation family saga (the descendants of Sorcha of Sevenwaters); treated as a single continuous Core Canon sequence rather than split by generation, per the multi-sub-arc-as-one-Core-saga precedent (also applied to Kushiel's Legacy's three sequential trilogies).
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series Sevenwaters: position 1 of 6: next Son of the Shadows (2000)
- Internal chronology, within Sevenwaters: position 1 of 7: next Son of the Shadows (2000)
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sevenwaters_series
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daughter_of_the_Forest
- https://aurealisawards.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/aurealis-1995-2013-compiled-lists.pdf
- https://www.ala.org/yalsa/booklistsawards/bookawards/alexawards/2001alexawards
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