What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
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The Rainbow Gate
SOLVED: Adult Fiction
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SOLVED. 1990s Fantasy Romance about reincarnation, a rainbow bridge, dolls. [s]
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Saskia
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Jun 15, 2021 02:13AM
I must have read this book as a child - sometime between 1995 and 2005, but might have been published as far back as the 70s. I think it was written for teens or young adults. The details are blurry in my memory, but it was set in either Ireland or Wales I think. Dolls (made of grass or straw or corn or sticks) start appearing for some reason - the main character, a woman, maybe dies and crosses 'the rainbow bridge' - the afterlife is this place where people's hair reflects the colour of their aura in life. So her late mother has purple hair because she was a dancer, and dancers have purple auras. Some people have gold hair, people who were very loving have blue hair in the afterlife etc. They all live in this weird organic chamber like a giant bean pod or a cocoon frolicing, having an awesome time, very innocent and childlike - and there are also these really depressed people who live in the dark in that same world, MC discovers that over time all of the happy frolicy colourful-hair people eventually get depressed and become part of the other group. I think part of the premise was that our living world is actually hell, and eventually everyone cycles out of that world back into the living world, and the weird organic dolls that are showing up everywhere are central to it all. I'd really love to find this book again if anyone recognises it - I want to see if it's as insane and as awesome as I remember it being! Any help would be hugely appreciated. Thanks!
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Is the MC an adult woman or a teenage girl?Who is the romance with?
This sounds both bizarre and amazing. I'll try to see what I can find!
Yay thank you! I think the MC was an adult woman, possibly with red hair. I don't remember anything about the romance and TBH I'm not actually 100% there was a romance but I think there might have been, with a guy - but the details are very fuzzy in my memory. I think about the book often and would really love to reread it. The MC might have lived in a small American town by the sea, like Cape Cod or something, but I think she was in Ireland or Wales or near there. And I'm sure the book was called something like "The Rainbow Bridge" or something with rainbow in it - the imagery of her crossing over, and everyone being 'assigned' a colour based on their soul, was very important. I've done heaps of googling and coming up short. You have the perfect username for this 'quest' btw :D thanks for helping me!
Are you sure this is YA, since the MC is an adult woman?I notice your profile says you're in South Africa. Is that where you read the book? Do you think the author was South African, or more likely American or from the UK?
I might be wrong about it being YA - I just thought it was, because I read it when I was somewhere between the ages of of 10 and 17, and I always assumed I got it from the school library but maybe not, could totally have been from the adult section. Now that I think about it, I'm sure the MC was definitely an adult woman so unlikely this was YA - not sure what to call the genre, sort of mystery afterlife thingie? Lol! Also I don't think the author was South African - totally possible, but most the books we had in libraries at that time were imports from overseas.
Also there were very strong celtic vibes - the stuff with the dolls had something to do with celtic magic. And I'm thinking MC might have had a twin sister but that's not definite.
This isn't it, bit it looks awesome - adding it to my reading list now :)
The book I read was set in contemporary times btw - the afterlife was like this timeless utopia, but the MC lived in modern society.
I'm not 100% certain but I don't think this was it - the whole thing of the afterlife and the dolls was central to the plot. Is it possible that if it was a fairly old obscure book, it might not be catalogued anywhere online?
The Rainbow Gate?All books published should be available in Worldcat. It's a good place to search with titles and keywords.
OMG yes this is it!!! Thanks so much, you are awesome!
Great! I'm super glad that was the right one. Happy to help out. :)
You've given me back a piece of my childhood. Thanks so much :)
What's the Name of That Book???
Books mentioned in this topic
The Rainbow Gate (other topics)Rainbow Bridge (other topics)
The Last Rainbow (other topics)
