The first book I ever read by Charles de Lint. I absolutely fell in love with this author after reading this book. I'm always hunting for his books to collect and have read as many as I can find. I don't like to borrow his books. If I can't buy them, I wait until I can find them because they are worthy of being added to my literature collection. I hope he writes for a very long time to come.

I am a fan of Charles de Lint's short fiction, and in my opinion that is what he should stick to. He is clearly more adept at that form and length than he is at stretching a story to be novel-length. He skimped too much on details that I felt needed more clarification and breadth while overly emphasizing and rehashing other elements that I understood the first time around. The relationships between the characters and some of the characters themselves weren't terribly believable and seemed contri...

An AMAZING blend of various mythologies from various cultures. Truly unique and creative.

This is the kind of novel for which Charles de Lint is famous, and I really enjoyed it. He masterfully draws together the mythologies of the Irish and Native Americans to create a complex tale that's sensitive to so many differing perspectives. I especially loved how the title “Forests of the Heart” took on multiple meanings as the story progressed (well, actually, it didn’t come together as a phrase/metaphor until nearer the end, but then it was clear how much of the story really had followed t...

Book #5 I've read from Charles de Lint. I wouldn't recommend this one. It felt very self-indulgent in the world-building details of Newford. Yes, I understand that he wants us to see this as a fully fleshed out, real town with many fascinating characters with the depth and complexity of real people. But do we need SO many characters in a book? Do we need to know the musical tastes of almost all of them? The book was so off-center. Starting it, I was hoping it would focus on Bettina and her deser...

It is not a good idea to enter a fantasy series in the middle. I rarely do it, but it happened with this one. There was really no problem, as the novel is standalone; but I got a little lost in Newford, Charles de Lint's imaginary Canadian town, where the human and spirit worlds intermingle seamlessly. There was a lot of that world to absorb before I could get into the tale proper.The premise of the story is simple. There are certain spirits called "The Gentry" who have come over from Ireland on...

This book had a long, slow start but it really grew on me. There was a loveliness to how it blended different spiritual traditions, and I found the characters interesting and alluring.

Charles de Lint is a master of urban fantasy. Combine that with his remarkable skill as a storyteller, his love of music, Celtic and Native legend and you have a tale that is enchanting, captivating, restorative. Forests of the Heart returns to de Lint's imaginary town of Newford, and draws heavily from native desert culture pitted against uprooted Celtic culture, all of it existing on an alternate plane that truly is just one step to the left. The Gentry, portrayed as angry, black-clad, cigaret...

I am writing this review of de Lint's novel before I go and read the reviews I have written before. I love the world that de Lint has created; I feel like I have come home when one of his recurring characters appears in a new book; I just settle into his books like I belong there. The real question is why haven't I read all of them. Part of the reason is that I need to be in the right place in my mind and I also just want the time to enjoy them. I believe this is why I read them on vacation.This...

Takes a turn I did not expect.World: I love the world this time around, this is the first book by De Lint that I have read that covers Latin American, more so Mexican beliefs, myths and lore and I find it fascinating. There are not huge info dumps here but rather storytellers who tell you their tale and that's been a staple of a De Lint book for a while. The pieces of myths we touch on from the First Nations, Irish to Mexican is really fascinating when it crash together and interact, it's mesmer...

I've long been a fan of Charles de Lint, ever since I first read Moon Heart in a bush camp back in the early 80s. He's a master of urban fantasy, much of it based around his imaginary city of Newford. Forests of the Heart takes us back there, this time in a story that crosses Celtic, Canadian Aboriginal and New World Spanish/SW American Native folklore.As usual, Charles gives us a great read. Forests is well-paced, with well-drawn, interesting characters (but...and there is a but, as I'll get to...

You know the kind of book where, even though you should be a responsible adult and put it down and go to sleep you cannot? And you stay up WAY too late just to see what happens? This book is THAT kind of book. I popped into the Newford series with this book having not read any of the other ones in the series before it, but I didn't find it disjointed. DeLint's writing is so good you can just immerse yourself in the world he's created and get to know the characters without needing any other back

Decent mythological crossover between European Faerie, Native American Manitou and Mexican Brujeria. The Fae in this book are less traditional than in many of de Lint’s previous stories – focusing mostly on the Gentry, a group of displaced Irish Fae who’s attitudes make the IRA Provos seem easygoing and forgiving, and the Greenman. As usual, much of the story centers around the Newford arts and music community. 3.5 stars.

A smorgasbord of cultural magical traditions in this one - we've got two Native American (Southwest and Prairie), Irish/Gaelic, and English/Saxon traditions all mixed up in an ice storm in Newford. Which is the point as the novel concerns what happens when magic that is rooted to a certain place and people is uprooted. De Lint was mashing up before mashing up was a thing. The only thing missing is the Scandinavian trolls! C'mon!

I think this is one of my all time favorites of his books--Newford meets Southwestern myth, and some really satisfying characters and plotting.

DeLint, as always, has a triumphant story. Possibly my personal favorite DeLint novel simply because he weaves Native American people's myth with the myth of the Celts. He, at once, shows the differences in the myth and mysteries of the Native Peoples of the America's, (both Mexico and Southern U.S. which were at one point one in the same), and he shows us the beauty inherent in both along with its potential for malice. It is not lost that these are both human characteristics which each person a...

What happens when people come over and take over? Well, we all know the answer to that question. But what happens to beliefs, to gods, to spirits? Charles de Lint answers that question in Forests of the Heart which deals with a conflict of spirits, both in the magical sense and the sense of self, in the town of Newford. It isn’t so much a question of good and evil, but more of a question what is the best thing to do, how does one make peace, what costs should be paid. The story takes place over

[7/10]My third Newford book and probably not my last. I have not been reading them in order, but that's OK, as they can be enjoyed independently. I'm trading being more or less clueless about some of the recurring characters in order to focus on the ones particular to each novel as a stand-alone. Forests of the Heart refers to the notion of Home, the place, geographical as much as spiritual that defines and nourishes us, gives us strength and a feeling of continuity, of belonging to a history

Does magic exist in the contemporary world? Charles de Lint’s mythic fiction brings supernatural beings into the context of the everyday and Forests of the Heart explores the contact between ordinary people and what he calls Mystery.Bettina and Adelita are sisters, both partly Mexican, partly Indios, and raised by their grandmother to see la époco del mito, the time of myth. However, as they grow older, Adelita puts the childish stories away, while Bettina becomes trained by her grandmother to b...

Probably on my top 3 books list. Its the only book I've ever re-read. It mixes different folklore all together making each side fit together and be equally as likely in the realm of fantasy. loved it loved it loved it