A wonderfully immersive novel
5 steloj
I was surprised by how deeply Shadow Horses Of The Rocky Mountains drew me in to its story. There are numerous threads in this novel which all come together to create a gripping tale that beautifully showcased the Canadian Rocky Mountain in all their wild glory. I loved this vibrant setting which Natascha Birovljev so wonderfully evokes through her writing. I could tell just how much this wilderness means to her as well as to her characters.
At its heart, I felt that Shadow Horses Of The Rocky Mountains was a novel about a bitterly fragmented family learning to forgive and to trust each other again after years of division. I appreciated how Lee and Lyla returning to a place they knew in their childhood gave us readers a chance to discover the ranch alongside them, learning as they do, and also how the gap in their ages meant they …
I was surprised by how deeply Shadow Horses Of The Rocky Mountains drew me in to its story. There are numerous threads in this novel which all come together to create a gripping tale that beautifully showcased the Canadian Rocky Mountain in all their wild glory. I loved this vibrant setting which Natascha Birovljev so wonderfully evokes through her writing. I could tell just how much this wilderness means to her as well as to her characters.
At its heart, I felt that Shadow Horses Of The Rocky Mountains was a novel about a bitterly fragmented family learning to forgive and to trust each other again after years of division. I appreciated how Lee and Lyla returning to a place they knew in their childhood gave us readers a chance to discover the ranch alongside them, learning as they do, and also how the gap in their ages meant they had different recollections of their Canadian life. Lyla's story is particularly interesting because she was so young when her mother took her away from Canada to Germany, yet certain of her memories are incredibly vivid.
Birovljev blends Western and First Nations beliefs and traditions in a way that I felt gave them both equal prominence. I loved seeing how the initial First Nations myth, which is recounted around a campfire in the very first chapter, was reflected within the novel. It's an important moral tale which then develops into a clear illustration of how Western ideas of entitlement and ownership are at odds with First Nations concepts.
While there were a couple of plot points which seemed just a little too convenient to be plausible, I could easily overlook this because I so much enjoyed losing myself in Birovljev's Rocky Mountains. This was a wonderfully immersive novel.