Darkhenge; C. Fisher

Darkhenge is a Young Adult contemporary fantasy published in the U.S. in 2005 by Eos. Ms. Fisher is a Welsh teen fiction writer, poet and professor. All of which goes a long way to explaining the depth and richness of this novel. I originally began Darkhenge at the start of what has & will prove to be a long and ugly battle between Husband & his former employer- which is to say, I found it very hard to concentrate & I felt the novel was very slow going for the first hundred pages or so. However, this is surely due my preoccupation and stress level at the time and not due to any shortcomings on the part of Ms. Fisher.

The long and short of it is this- Chloe Drew had a riding accident and is now in a coma in a long term care facility in Britain somewhere. Ms. Fisher names a town, but I'm too lazy to look it up to see if it's a 'real place.' Her parents and her older brother are muddling along as best they can, ie: not very well at all, but they're trying. Chloe's older brother Robert is convinced (reluctantly at first) that Chloe's spirit has become trapped in a recently uncovered ancient wooden henge. So he goes after her with the help of the ancient Welsh poet, Taliesin. How Chloe, Clare, Vetch, Mac, Rob and the King of the Underworld triumph is the main thrust of the tale.

Personally I was fascinated by the juxtaposition of the ancient belief that illness can be caused by or worsened by the separation of the spirit and the body and modern Druidism. Also the interplay between modern Christianity, as represented by Mac, and ancient and modern Druidism, as represented by Vetch, was fascinating and thought provoking. Very highly recommnded. Already borrowed two more of Ms. Fisher's books from the library.