"The Story Begins..." That's the chapter heading that starts the small sample that took my breath away from the desire to know more.
Dianne Setterfield is a master storyteller and the premise of a storyteller telling a book about the old style of storytelling of people gathered around a fire, with a dink of some kind, through the ages, (in this case an old Inn near the mouth of the Thames with a history of telling the tale of one long ago battle that took place on a bridge that the Inn overlooks, should be enough for any reader.
But wait, there's more...one night, during a retelling, with its usual slightly different twists, the door to the Inn opens and a severely injured man enters with what looks like a puppet only to start to fall to the floor before the patrons save him, I can tell that, once again, Setterfield is going to be at her best, and darn it the excerpt ends shortly after another shocker and I am left wanting, no needing to know the rest.
I've read all of her work and would place it at the top, which is unusual considering she does touch on fantasy which isn't my genre unless done by the greats like her, Markus Zusak and Carlos Ruiz Zafon. They create realistic yet fantastic worlds that I can fall into like Alice fell into Wonderland, even though, honestly, I was never able to fall with Alice into Wonderland. Sorry Louis Carroll.)
Dianne Setterfield is a master storyteller and the premise of a storyteller telling a book about the old style of storytelling of people gathered around a fire, with a dink of some kind, through the ages, (in this case an old Inn near the mouth of the Thames with a history of telling the tale of one long ago battle that took place on a bridge that the Inn overlooks, should be enough for any reader.
But wait, there's more...one night, during a retelling, with its usual slightly different twists, the door to the Inn opens and a severely injured man enters with what looks like a puppet only to start to fall to the floor before the patrons save him, I can tell that, once again, Setterfield is going to be at her best, and darn it the excerpt ends shortly after another shocker and I am left wanting, no needing to know the rest.
I've read all of her work and would place it at the top, which is unusual considering she does touch on fantasy which isn't my genre unless done by the greats like her, Markus Zusak and Carlos Ruiz Zafon. They create realistic yet fantastic worlds that I can fall into like Alice fell into Wonderland, even though, honestly, I was never able to fall with Alice into Wonderland. Sorry Louis Carroll.)