Status Updates From In the Night Garden (The Or...

And so we’re onto the story of Saint Sigrid’s first miracle, which involves the sad story of the Last Griffins (and through Quri, we learn of Giota, who may be an ancestress of Knive and her people); we learn of the Prophecy, of the possibility that Saint Sigrid may still be alive; and finally, a game of Lo Shen is had between two Papesses’s to see who is to rule the Dreaming City…

And so, we’re finally onto the story of Saint Sigrid, herself a child of Ajanabah like Snow who finds herself spirited away by a crew of all women.l-pirates; from there, we have the story of Tomomo, a fox-spirit and from her, the sad story of Itto the Twinned-Star and of his creation and Tomomo’s ship, the Maidenhead…

The Book of the Steppe is completed, and now we’re onto the next tale the Book of the Sea; here, we are introduced to a girl called Snow who is told a story by a net-weaver, of the Dreaming City called Al-a-Nur and of the battle between Papesses, one of whom is resurrected with the help of a Yi…

And finally, the truth is discovered with the connection made between Helia and Knife, with Aerie’s life returned at the price of another life; and for the boy who wanted to be Death, justice finally comes for the Wizard (and we discover the King to be the half-brother to Magadin, the beast-maiden) — read this as I was on my way to my Honours degree graduation ceremony today!

Read this yesterday on the bus, onto the story of Eyvind, the man who was once a polar bear set upon avenging a murdered star; Leander gets the Leucotta’s skin, who in turn gives the story of how he met the Witch of the Glen and how they saved a beast-maiden, Magadin, from the wizard; and from there, Magadin tells the story of her stepmother Iolanthe, and how Magadin was effectively betrayed into being kidnapped…

A Sultan’s son sneaks down to the girl with stories painted on her eyes, and already, I was hooked; we start with Leander and his quest to revive Aerie, a bird-maiden he accidentally killed, and to help the witch known as Knife; alongside this, we learn the stories of Bent-Bow and Helia and of the Manikarna; and right now, Leander is on a quest to find the Leucrotta to help Knife revive Aerie…

Not something I would pick up usually but doing so for my book club. While the prose is mesmerising, I am already a little lost on some of the meaning …