Jo.
When I read this book, I started to write a review, which I never quite completed, and which I have now.
So here it is. I hope you like it.
Waters and the Wild
When I started reading Waters and the Wild I was afraid that it was just going to follow the new trend of making it impossible to know whether the faeries existed or if it was all just something in the main protagonists imagination. And to be honest thats how it starts.
But having read other books by Jo Zebedee, I really should have known better than to expect only that. For whether in her Science Fiction or her Fantasy novels, Jo starts from a standard format and develops her books where the most such stories rarely reach.
Jo’s stories are always basically about people, and her people have a reality and depth seldom found in print.
The main character is, as a child, caught between believing in her fantasies and doubting her own memories of meeting faerie folk whilst on holiday. She is both irresistibly drawn to, and absolutely terrified of either one.
Now, a teenager, she is unable to have a normal relationship with a boy she has just met at a wedding party, as the old delights and fears take control of her again in the grove behind the hotel.
But that’s just the start.
From there Jo builds the tale of how these events affect the life of the girl, Amy, the boy she meets, Amy’s family and the local community.
Without wishing to give anything away, we learn, though next few days, just how much Amy’s confusion have complicated the lives of her parents, both individually and together, her brother, and now the new boy, Peter.
This is not really a story about faeries at all. This is the story of these people.
Brave and gallant people, weak and confused people, and just ordinary people struggling to cope with extraordinary things, and I found myself constantly asking; could I have behaved so well or so badly in those circumstances. And in generally the answer was yes.
The story never lets up, but also never lets you know where it’s going next.
Each new revelation comes out of the blue and hits you like a thunderbolt, remaining nevertheless absolutely believable
And the ending?
Ah the ending climbs even higher, as all the protagonists race towards the final revelation.
A revelation which I promise will not be what you expect.
