Diving Belles
Lucy Wood
Diving Belles
Along Cornwall's ancient coast, the flotsam and jetsam of the past becomes caught in the cross-currents of the present and, from time to time, a certain kind of magic can float to the surface...Straying husbands lured into the sea can be fetched back, for a fee. Magpies whisper to lonely drivers late at night. Trees can make wishes come true - provided you know how to wish properly first. Houses creak, fill with water and keep a fretful watch on their inhabitants, straightening shower curtains and worrying about frayed carpets. A teenager's growing pains are sometimes even bigger than him. And, on a windy beach, a small boy and his grandmother keep despair at bay with an old white door. In these stories, Cornish folklore slips into everyday life. Hopes, regrets and memories are entangled with catfish, wrecker's lamps, standing stones and baying hounds, and relationships wax and wane in the glow of a moonlit sea.
3.8 out of 5 based on 6 reviews
|
Omniscore:
|
| Classification |
Fiction |
| Genre |
Short Stories |
| Format |
Hardcover |
| Pages |
240 |
| RRP |
£14.99 |
| Date of Publication |
January 2012 |
| ISBN |
978-1408816851 |
| Publisher |
Bloomsbury |
| |
Along Cornwall's ancient coast, the flotsam and jetsam of the past becomes caught in the cross-currents of the present and, from time to time, a certain kind of magic can float to the surface...Straying husbands lured into the sea can be fetched back, for a fee. Magpies whisper to lonely drivers late at night. Trees can make wishes come true - provided you know how to wish properly first. Houses creak, fill with water and keep a fretful watch on their inhabitants, straightening shower curtains and worrying about frayed carpets. A teenager's growing pains are sometimes even bigger than him. And, on a windy beach, a small boy and his grandmother keep despair at bay with an old white door. In these stories, Cornish folklore slips into everyday life. Hopes, regrets and memories are entangled with catfish, wrecker's lamps, standing stones and baying hounds, and relationships wax and wane in the glow of a moonlit sea.
Reviews
The Independent on Sunday
Daneet Steffens
"Wood's writing ranges from thriller-film creepy to full-on mischievous. "
22/01/2012
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The Daily Mail
Hephzibah Anderson
"This bewitching short story collection draws its power from a deft blend of Cornish folklore and everyday contemporary cares."
19/01/2012
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The Times
Kate Saunders
"Wood’s imagination is extraordinary; she has an instinct for the inner meanings of myths that echoes the great Angela Carter. Superb."
14/01/2012
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The Times
Phil Baker
"Winsome, quirky and sometimes enchanting, Wood’s stories seem to fish about in rock pools of the imagination … The effect is more like a prose poem than a tale, and like many modern short stories these pieces tend to close on unresolved and oblique notes, not unlike the joke that one of the characters starts to tell but then forgets. Wood is not a writer of dynamic plots and punch-line endings; her gift, instead, is for conjuring up gentle suspensions of disbelief."
15/01/2012
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Times Literary Supplement
Henry Power
"One of the best aspects of these stories is the way in which the daily lives of their characters become imbued with a mystical, folkloric significance ... Technically, Diving Belles is ambitious, and the stories are told from a number of viewpoints. Most of them are written in the third person, the narrator identifying closely with Wood’s various tender but unflappable heroines. "
09/03/2012
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The Guardian
Catherine Taylor
"Set on the Cornish coast and wrapped in local mythology, Wood's finely wrought collection has touches of a benign Angela Carter and recalls the playful yet political transmogrifications of Atwood and Byatt. "
27/01/2012
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