Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick (review)

This collection of seven short stories, inspired by the epic final painting by turn-of- the-century Swedish artist Carl Larsson, is set on a remote Scandinavian island where the inhabitants appear to remain ageless in part due to an odd native flower that resembles a dragon. The first vignette opens in June of 2073 and features Eric, a young journalist whose investigation into the mysteries of the island brings him closer to Merle, an island resident who is strangely familiar to Eric. The story ends with both Merle and Eric facing down a sacrificial knife and the crazed island leader who wields it, an authorial choice that ensures that readers will be sufficiently invested in the two main characters to follow the remaining six tales, which trace the connection between Merle and Eric back through the centuries, eventually ending with the original sacrifice that set their fate in motion. The concept of two souls connected over space and time has obvious romantic appeal, and each individual story here is stunningly developed, offering up a different iteration of love and linking Eric and Merle in surprising but poignant ways: in one lifetime, they are mother and son, in another siblings, and in still another, a young girl and an old man who never meet but who manage to change each other’s lives nonetheless. Sedgwick’s prose is unadorned yet melancholic, and the stories all share a sense of a bleak desperation touched with just the slightest bit of hope, an effect that is most apparent in the concluding tale that reveals the ultimate fate of the two lovers. If readers require more heartache after that, an author’s note chronicling the artwork that inspired the stories will guide them to an equally compelling tale of the real-life painter and his subject.