Review: Spellbinding
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 20, 2013
Well, I loved it.A slow start for me, and although this love story is a slow burn in most aspects, it caught me in a subtle, but powerful grip around a third of the way through.An evocative background in the Isle of Garve, and the story of two very different women; both of whom come to love not only the island itself, but the men who are so much a part of its rugged landscape and its desolate, cruel beauty. Alys, a modern single parent, falls for an old childhood friend in Donal when she re-visits the island for a holiday.In direct contrast, three hundred years ago, widowed Henrietta is brought to the island as a captive, a victim of her rich estate. The binding link between these women is a curiosity cabinet, something which has been handed down the generations and represents in its simplicity, everything which is precious about Garve and its unique history.I loved the contrast between the lives of these women, and despite the changes on the island, their fundamental hopes and desires for love and motherhood, were somehow the same. A part historical, part contemporary story which was, spellbinding.