A glorious novel set in seventeenth-century London, and in the fairy world. Abridged edition, read by Juliet Stevenson
The story is told by Coriander, daughter of a silk merchant in 1650s London. Her idyllic childhood ends when her mother dies and her father goes away, leaving Coriander with her stepmother, a widow who is in cahoots with a fundamentalist Puritan preacher. She is shut away in a chest and left to die, but emerges into the fairy world from which her mother came, and where time has no meaning. When she returns, charged with a task that will transform her life, she is seventeen.
This is a book filled with enchantments — a pair of silver shoes, a fairy shadow, a prince transformed into a fox – that contrast with the heartbreaking loss and cruelty of Coriander’s life in the real world. With its brilliantly realized setting of old London Bridge, and underpinned by the conflict between Royalists and Puritans, it is a terrific page turner, involving kidnapping, murder and romance, and an abundance of vivid characters.
Coriander is a heroine to love. Her story will establish Sally Gardner as a children’s writer of boundless imagination and originality.
Read by Juliet Stevenson
(P)2004 Orion Publishing Group.Ltd
The story is told by Coriander, daughter of a silk merchant in 1650s London. Her idyllic childhood ends when her mother dies and her father goes away, leaving Coriander with her stepmother, a widow who is in cahoots with a fundamentalist Puritan preacher. She is shut away in a chest and left to die, but emerges into the fairy world from which her mother came, and where time has no meaning. When she returns, charged with a task that will transform her life, she is seventeen.
This is a book filled with enchantments — a pair of silver shoes, a fairy shadow, a prince transformed into a fox – that contrast with the heartbreaking loss and cruelty of Coriander’s life in the real world. With its brilliantly realized setting of old London Bridge, and underpinned by the conflict between Royalists and Puritans, it is a terrific page turner, involving kidnapping, murder and romance, and an abundance of vivid characters.
Coriander is a heroine to love. Her story will establish Sally Gardner as a children’s writer of boundless imagination and originality.
Read by Juliet Stevenson
(P)2004 Orion Publishing Group.Ltd
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Reviews
Enchanting
Gripping ... as vivd as Pepys' diary ... strikingly original ... a very special book indeed
What a delight!
An extraordinarily beautiful and gripping tale
A very unusual, poetic tale
A beautifully written tale of suspense and intrigue
Richly written, highly visual and full of accurate historical detail
Spellbinding
Brilliant descriptions, powerfully evoking the sounds and smells of London in the period and superbly drawn characters combine with a delicately constructed plot to make this book a real pleasure
An original and enigmatic novel
Beautifully written, completely absorbing ... Magical