This is two stories that parallel each other as one. Unfortunately, they are rather rigidly separated in alternating episodes, each chapter stiffly moving back and forth between one story and the other. While someone applauded the difficulty of this maneuver, it seems a rather conventional plot device over the past few years, a number of authors I can think of--Robin Hobb, George R.R. Martin, Robert Jordan, Sara Douglass, Steven Erikson, to name a few--interweaving multiple plots with diverse perspective in order to enrich their narratives. Granted, the tales here are separated by almost three hundred years, and on the surface appear to be dealing with very different themes and characters, so I suppose a claim could be made as to the difficulty in successfully intermingling two distinctive narratives, if the manner of organizing them were not so artificial and unyeilding. Bouncing unerringly back and forth between stories seems hardly inventive, and the author's unfailing adherence to the practice becomes predictable and tiresome.

The two individual main characters of these tales--Elias, a young gay man striving to come to terms with his identity in the New York City of the early 80's, and Eliza Grey, a fosterling returning to nobility in 1689 England--seem familiar and typecast. The former is facing all the predictable hurdles already suggested in Hollywood and other fictional portrayals of young gay men abandoned to the street, his sensitivity established between alternating tears, insecurity and blushing, who, upon announcing his sexual identity (a school mate snitches), is thrown out of the house by his "East Coast Brahmin" father, a deacon of the church, who with typical originality casts him out with the curse "You can go live with all the rest of the faggots. Live in a cesspool...And when you die, you can burn in hell forever." He is befriended by an older, wiser, senstive--and need I say also gay--man who sings beautifully on his guitar before the subway, and to whom Elias immediately forms an infatuation. Seem familiar? Know where it's going?

Eliza, on the otherhand, is straight out of any number of 19th century English novels, be it Austen or Dickens. Given into fosterage by her father, a Count, shortly after the death of her mother, she is raised by a kind farmwife, only to be abruptly returned to her family's estate as she approaches the age of marriage. Her mother has been replaced by an evil and sorcerous step-mother, who conforms to that much maligned parental stereotype with all the casting of the Brothers Grimm or Walt Disney in "Snow White. There appears little deviation from a well-worn path.

Finally, it is not long before various conventional plot contrivances begin to appear. Upon Eliza's arrival at her family estate, her evil step-mother immediately takes her down to where she keeps her herbs and potions and things. Coincidentally, unaware of her step-mother's intentions, Eliza picks up a sprig of juniper, which it is announced, is a protection against evil and spells. Unsurprisingly, she's gonna need it, as her step-mother mixes a batch of herbs that she throws into Eliza's face, causing Eliza to fall into a dull and submissive stupor. Not to worry, though, the sprig of juniper saves the day.

While I realize that I am going against the grain of what seems to be common opinion on these pages, I cannot help but find the first hundred pages of this book too obvious, simplistically plotted and predictable. Having read the first chapters, why read further? This work is loosely based upon the old Celtic legend of the swans (despite attribution elsewhere to Hans Christian Anderson, evidence of cultural borrowing), more closely and successfully rendered recently by Juliet Marillier. If you are interested in reading a retelling of this tale I would direct you there: "Daughter of the Forest" is far more satisfying tale. Unfortunately, despite evidence that Ms. Kerr knows how to compose a sentence and a paragraph, the plot line of her story far too stale to generate much interest. While the concept has potential, and the style of writing cleanly rendered, based upon the execution I may have been overly generous in granting it three stars.