Stephanie Jane recenzis Secure the Shadow de Marion Grace Woolley
A real treat
5 steloj
I'd grown just a tad weary of dual timeline novels recently so I am especially pleased that Velulu Khesoh's gorgeous cover art tempted me to look past that aspect of Secure The Shadow. I'd have missed a real treat otherwise. Marion Grace Woolley's wonderful novel has completely restored my faith in the genre!
Secure The Shadow explores ideas around memory and loss with the history of photography providing a strong link between the three central characters. I loved Woolley's historical evocation of Bristol, a city I know fairly well today. She has a genuine talent for depicting atmosphere and emotion, frequently allowing the two to play off each other which adds real depth to scenes and conversations. While the redcoat, Alfred, is essentially the beginning of this story, it was the two women, Victorian Arabella and present day Cody, who particularly caught my imagination. Both are determined to pursue their …
I'd grown just a tad weary of dual timeline novels recently so I am especially pleased that Velulu Khesoh's gorgeous cover art tempted me to look past that aspect of Secure The Shadow. I'd have missed a real treat otherwise. Marion Grace Woolley's wonderful novel has completely restored my faith in the genre!
Secure The Shadow explores ideas around memory and loss with the history of photography providing a strong link between the three central characters. I loved Woolley's historical evocation of Bristol, a city I know fairly well today. She has a genuine talent for depicting atmosphere and emotion, frequently allowing the two to play off each other which adds real depth to scenes and conversations. While the redcoat, Alfred, is essentially the beginning of this story, it was the two women, Victorian Arabella and present day Cody, who particularly caught my imagination. Both are determined to pursue their artistic dreams, but are held back in various ways. I loved understanding their differences - obviously Arabella's independence would seem to be more strictly curtailed than Cody's - and also seeing them struggle against similar situations of lost family and isolation. They make as many bad choices as good ones, but I always completely believed in their motivations.
I think for me the most memorable aspects of Secure The Shadow is the ideas Woolley puts forward around the veracity of memory and how what we believe can be turned on its head by gaining a more information and a wider view. Even the supposed clarity of the newfangled photography has its limitations so its images might not be as trustworthy as we would like to believe. The Little Angels photography service is an interesting paradox and I thought Woolley handled the stillbirths storyline very sensitively. Cody creates memories of families that have already been lost, yet this action allows them to be remembered. The Victorian fashion of postmortem photography has been twisted into something rather dark and gothic these days, but the idea at its heart is beautiful and beautifully depicted throughout Secure The Shadow.