by Meg Rosoff
Adventure and love come in the most unlikely of places
From Goodreads:
A young woman in 1850s rural England runs away from home on horseback the day she’s to marry her childhood sweetheart. Pell is from a poor preacher’s family and she’s watched her mother suffer for years under the burden of caring for an ever-increasing number of children. Pell yearns to escape the inevitable repetition of such a life.
She understands horses better than people and sets off for Salisbury Fair, where horse trading takes place, in the hope of finding work and buying herself some time. But as she rides farther away from home, Pell’s feelings for her parents, her siblings, and her fiancé surprise her with their strength and alter the course of her travels. And her journey leads her to find love where she least expects it.
Meg Rosoff is such a lovely writer. Maybe it was because I listened to this and I loved the British narrator, but I think it is more of Rosoff's ability to turn the simplest of stories into something engrossing.
Pell's is a basic story, but it holds your attention from start to finish. Rosoff tells you just enough about the character, but there is always a sense of mystery. I love how she doesn't see the need to spell things out. Her characters remind me of something out of a story book, they are not over described, and while you sympathize with them they don't all together seem real. One last thing that I loved about this book was that it was not longer than it needed to be. Very different from How I Live Now, but just as intriguing.
The verdict is: Short and sweet!
No comments:
Post a Comment