Review: Astounding!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 09 19, 2013
It is 2009 and Ruth and her husband Matt have set up a stall at the Mind Body and Spirit Fair in a Norfolk village - Ruth as a reluctant psychic (she doesn't really believe she has the power) and Matt selling prints of his paintings. Everything would have been all right, perhaps, if their daughter Skye had not suddenly produced an object from Ruth's past - the Wishing Stone. Ruth does not want to have anything to do with it, but Matt persuades her to let Skye set up her own table and charge the fair-goers a pound each to wish on the stone.Throughout the day people pass by the stall, some stopping to look at Matt's pictures, some going into Ruth's tent to have their fortunes told, and some making a wish on the stone.Seventeen of them, in fact. Seventeen people wish on the stone, and one by one their wishes come true - sort of.We don't find out until near the end just why Ruth is so reluctant to let people wish on the stone and what her own wish had been.I've been following Terry Tyler on Twitter for a while and, having read many comments on her work, I expected her to be good. But she is not just good, she is astounding!She can do it. She can take you to another world and leave you in there. For a couple of blessed days I lived in Ruth's world and that of the hapless people who had wished on the stone.Terry Tyler is one of those authors you feel excited to have discovered.  Her writing style reminds me of that of Kate Atkinson and Nicci French - fluent, readable, utterly compelling.I have to go now. She's written 6 novels and I need to download the rest.