Before reading this book, read one of the ballads of Tam Lin. Or at least one of the prose versions of the story. Then read this - and do read it. It's very good.

Diana Wynne Jones, like Neil Gaiman, writes beautiful stories. Charming, engaging, deep, complex stories which are also perfectly simple and elegant. This is no exception. Polly reminds me of myself at fourteen, and at nineteen; she also reminds me of Polly in The Magician's Nephew (by C S Lewis), and of fairy tale heroines who win the day by being kind and brave and simply good. The magic is so unremarkable that it almost doesn't seem like magic, until it does. Thomas Lynn is as ambiguously good and not-so-good, brave and cowardly, victim and protagonist as in the original stories of Tam Lin, and the villains are perfectly wicked vampirish fairies. Or perhaps just magical, wealthy, powerful and amoral people. Or maybe something else entirely.

I read this in a day because I couldn't bring myself to stop reading once I started. Thoroughly enjoyed, would read again. ( )

My first thought when I finished this book was that it was a brilliant celebration of stories for writers and readers alike. My second thought was that the ending was a bit rushed and I was left with some questions about certain characters by the end.
I am very glad my ebook includes the text "The Heroic Ideal" because I would never get all of the references and all the stories the author pulled from.
This book is at its core a story about heroes and love in the way that goes as far back as myths and fairy tales and it has a similar resolution.
All I can say is that my mind was blown away and I definitely will reread this one in the future. It is one of those books that you pick up on a lot more details the more you read it and I just know it is worth the journey. ( )

I still like this book a lot but reading it as an adult makes me want to give Tom a talking to about boundaries and appropriate interactions with minors. ( )

I can't believe I didn't read this in like fifth grade and love it to pieces. ( )

This was going to be four stars but the ending lost me on several counts. But despite that this is one of the best books by Jones I've read so far. It has interesting cross-connections to two of my favorite books by Jo Walton: My Real Children and Among Others. Like My Real Children, the framing story involves a character trying to reconcile two sets of memories. In Fire and Hemlock, it begins with a short story collection that seems to have different stories that remembered. Pondering triggers a sudden set of extensive memories involving mysterious events in the main character's childhood 9 years earlier. The telling of that story is very similar to Among Others. Magic just at the periphery and a lot of references to science fiction and fantasy books.

All this is great, but, as with Among Others, eventually there has to come a showdown. No spoilers, but I just could not follow what was happening here, or how the heroine and everyone else knew what to do, but could only hint vaguely at it to each other. Plus -- and this is a trigger warning - what was a charming adult / child relationship turns disturbingly romantic.

Still recommended, but be prepared to be disappointed in the last chapter. ( )