Review: This spirit is willing... very!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 7, 2013
Linda Gillard is an excellent writer, a real story-teller. She takes on meaty challenges in her books without flinching and pulls off tackling those challenges with verve and dash. I've read stark tragedy and eroticism, even of a taboo kind, in her work before. This time she seems on the face of it to be enjoying bringing us a simpler, less shocking love story with well-drawn characters and her signature painterly sense of place, together with a musical 'soundtrack' which again is a recurring theme of her books. However the writer's dilemma here is similar to that faced in The Ghost and Mrs Muir - a paranormal romance, but there lies her challenge this time. The ghost is not 'undead', or a vampire like the Twilight lot, he's a real man who happens to be dead. Where can the story go to take us to the happy ending we want for Ruth, her protagonist? Ruth has faced a lot of loss and grief but is strong and determined and warm. We want her to have some fun and some happiness! I found I read this at great speed because I couldn't wait to find out what happened! (But it's hard to avoid spoilers with this one so I'll say no more about the plot.) Like many good authors nowadays, Linda Gillard has gone into indie publishing and sold incredibly well, she has a loyal following of discerning readers, intelligent people who like a good story and fascinating characters. A mix of escapism (here to beautiful Skye and also back into history) and recognition: identifying with the protagonist and other characters, which again this book delivers in spades. 'Dead tree' publishers are losing a lot of sales and readers by not snapping up Gillard's books and all because of some kind of prejudice against 'genre crossing'. Of course publishers need to shift books, but even when Linda Gillard's books cross genre boundaries, they are distinct and clear in themselves; they could be pitched like a film, if only publishers believed in their readers' intelligence and common sense as much as Linda Gillard does. One of her many talents is to create believable, 'normal' characters who, whatever strange, tragic, erotic, taboo situations they find themselves in, avoid the preciousness and 'poshness' which can be off-putting in many other authors' books particularly the 'aga sagas'. Her books are firmly modern, rooted in the modern world with all its everyday technology and problems and absurdities which we all recognise, as well as set in historical contexts and wild imaginings. She doesn't flinch from hot and strong sex scenes, I'm glad to say! So, a paranormal romance. A writer who writes about sex with no holds barred. Which begs the question, just how would someone have sex with a ghost? If the spirit is willing... would you?!