Review of Ghostbird by Carol Lovekin #Bookreview @carollovekin @honno

As I enjoyed Ghostbird so much, and a paperback was sent to me from the author as part of the Writers For Grenfell fundraiser earlier this year, I thought I’d review it on my blog.

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Publisher

Honno Welsh Women’s Press (17 Mar. 2016)

Blurb

Someone needs to be forgiven. Someone needs to forgive.

‘Charming, quirky, magical’ Joanne Harris

Nothing hurts like not knowing who you are.

Nobody will tell Cadi anything about her father and her sister. Her mother Violet believes she can only cope with the past by never talking about it. Lili, Cadi’s aunt, is stuck in the middle, bound by a promise she shouldn’t have made. But this summer, Cadi is determined to find out the truth.

In a world of hauntings and magic, in a village where it rains throughout August, as Cadi starts on her search, the secrets and the ghosts begin to wake up. None of the Hopkins women will be able to escape them.

My thoughts

I put this book down for a bit at the first mention of ghosts – I know, I could have guessed there might be one from the title – as things were getting creepy. Once I restarted (when no longer alone in the house), Ghostbird took me over… in a good way. There’s a blend of mystery, coming of age, quest, family secrets, magic realism and the supernatural here, all of which make for an original and surprising novel.

I fell in love with the writing – the prose is wonderfully crafted, especially when describing the natural world, always with great attention to the sound of language. There are so many amazing sentences it’s almost impossible to pick just one. The dialogue is excellent too; it captures personalities and feels authentic, and is never superfluous.

While the novel contains considerable darkness, delicious moments of low-key humour and non-realism keep the tone upbeat, if not bright. The rain, part of the ‘old wisdom’ of the village, appears so often it is like another character.

“From the first day of August until the last, it rained at least once a day in the village. When the sun broke through, people caught their breath, marvelled at the glimmer turning raindrops to treasure.”

So, to the plot. After she meets a mysterious newly arrived man in her village, 14-year-old Cadi decides she is going to find out the truth about the circumstances of her father’s and sister’s deaths, despite opposition from her emotionally absent, grief-stricken mother Violet and her white-witch lesbian aunt, Lili, Violet’s sister. Cadi also has to contend with the childlike ghost that appears one day by the local late, where years ago her sister drowned as a small child. As she becomes more estranged from her mother, who resists Cadi’s questions, Cadi is drawn to seek out the mysterious apparition…

Ok, this might sound like the start of a horror story but it definitely isn’t one. Moments of spookiness recur but they won’t freak you out