I've read several other books by Louisa Morgan, which have been mesmerizing, but this was a real departure from her standard fare of stories involving generations of witches, which are amazing - some of my absolute favorites in that genre. This curious tale is a different bird altogether. Set in the Pacific Northwest in the years after WWII, it tells the story of Barrie Anne Blythe and her aunt Charlotte, who raised her after the death of her parents.
The Blythe family, it seems, has some magical propensities as well, specifically premonitions involving water, formerly earning them the name "water witches." They are, it seems, drawn to living by water and have a preternatural affinity for it, even if that's the general limit of their abilities, unlike some of the characters from Morgan's other books. Like her other characters, however, the water witches often live on the margins of their communities, frequently experiencing some degree of ostracism and suspicion.
The novel is bifurcated into the events during and then after the war. In the midst of the war years, Barrie meets a charming, handsome man at college, who, it turns out, is not what he seems. After a somewhat whirlwind romance, during which he enlists in the navy to become a corpsman in preparation to become a doctor, the two marry in a civil ceremony just before he is deployed, requiring her to drop out of college to follow him, which was (and still is often) the case with so many young women - the man's career and interests came first.
The newlywed couple travel down the coast to San Diego... where things begin to unravel, quickly. Barrie's husband is critical, utterly self-centered and narcissistic, and sees her as little more than a trophy wife. Things take a dramatic turn, however, when he stops returning her letters, and then mysteriously disappears for years, apparently without even telling his parents that he was married.
Things take an even darker turn when he reappears in her life, which then intersects with the second story. After his first departure, Barrie remains on a farm he purchased for them, with her (maybe "familiar") dog Willow, who one day drags up a curious find from the sea in the form of a baby... but not just any baby. This is where the story got kind of weird for me, because, as fantastical as her other novels were, they were at least somewhat credible, in a way this one juts wasn't.
I won't give too many spoilers here, but I think this book took on a bit too much. It would have done just fine without the oddly-timed entrance of a foundling, mermaid-esque water-baby (who may or may not have been somehow connected to, of all things, flying saucers - there's mention of the Roswell incident and one closer to home in the Pacific Northwest - whose story remained unresolved in a way I didn't like, as well. Was she, or wasn't she? That's a bit too much to leave to the reader's imagination. Then enter the fledgling CIA government men who come calling (although the CIA's realm is international rather than domestic concerns, the latter falling to the jurisdiction of the FBI or NSA, which would have been more credible, frankly).
That said, as with many of Morgan's other stories, this one definitely involves female empowerment, but much of the account also entails the process of a young woman finding herself, and discovering her inner strength when faced with adversity and tragedy, which I really identify with. Another commonality in the author's stories is that younger women need and receive guidance from their older forebearers, here, Barrie's aunt Charlotte, who carries a secret of her own. That's probably what drew me to the author's books in the first place, although this one is a bit more out there than her others.
One more observation: it was downright scary to see how accurately she portrayed Barrie's husband as a malignant narcissist; she even mentions the old movie "Gaslight" at one point, when Barrie figures out what he actually is, something many women don't do until it's far too late. NPDs (narcissistic personality disorders) just run down a checklist of prototypical behaviors and characteristics, and most of their devastating traits are described here with startling accuracy. I hope the author just did ample research for this character and didn't have one of these vampires in her life to draw from firsthand experience.
Solid three-star rating, but, honestly, it would have been three and a half but for how well-written it is, which is a solid feature of this author's works. The prose is engaging and descriptive, the characters are well-developed and sympathetic, and it likewise kept me interested and wanting to see what happens next, which isn't always the case with fictional novels, so I'll bump it up some for being very well-written, even if I didn't like it nearly as much as her other novels, which, unlike this one, I couldn't put down and which left me hungry for more.
The Blythe family, it seems, has some magical propensities as well, specifically premonitions involving water, formerly earning them the name "water witches." They are, it seems, drawn to living by water and have a preternatural affinity for it, even if that's the general limit of their abilities, unlike some of the characters from Morgan's other books. Like her other characters, however, the water witches often live on the margins of their communities, frequently experiencing some degree of ostracism and suspicion.
The novel is bifurcated into the events during and then after the war. In the midst of the war years, Barrie meets a charming, handsome man at college, who, it turns out, is not what he seems. After a somewhat whirlwind romance, during which he enlists in the navy to become a corpsman in preparation to become a doctor, the two marry in a civil ceremony just before he is deployed, requiring her to drop out of college to follow him, which was (and still is often) the case with so many young women - the man's career and interests came first.
The newlywed couple travel down the coast to San Diego... where things begin to unravel, quickly. Barrie's husband is critical, utterly self-centered and narcissistic, and sees her as little more than a trophy wife. Things take a dramatic turn, however, when he stops returning her letters, and then mysteriously disappears for years, apparently without even telling his parents that he was married.
Things take an even darker turn when he reappears in her life, which then intersects with the second story. After his first departure, Barrie remains on a farm he purchased for them, with her (maybe "familiar") dog Willow, who one day drags up a curious find from the sea in the form of a baby... but not just any baby. This is where the story got kind of weird for me, because, as fantastical as her other novels were, they were at least somewhat credible, in a way this one juts wasn't.
I won't give too many spoilers here, but I think this book took on a bit too much. It would have done just fine without the oddly-timed entrance of a foundling, mermaid-esque water-baby (who may or may not have been somehow connected to, of all things, flying saucers - there's mention of the Roswell incident and one closer to home in the Pacific Northwest - whose story remained unresolved in a way I didn't like, as well. Was she, or wasn't she? That's a bit too much to leave to the reader's imagination. Then enter the fledgling CIA government men who come calling (although the CIA's realm is international rather than domestic concerns, the latter falling to the jurisdiction of the FBI or NSA, which would have been more credible, frankly).
That said, as with many of Morgan's other stories, this one definitely involves female empowerment, but much of the account also entails the process of a young woman finding herself, and discovering her inner strength when faced with adversity and tragedy, which I really identify with. Another commonality in the author's stories is that younger women need and receive guidance from their older forebearers, here, Barrie's aunt Charlotte, who carries a secret of her own. That's probably what drew me to the author's books in the first place, although this one is a bit more out there than her others.
One more observation: it was downright scary to see how accurately she portrayed Barrie's husband as a malignant narcissist; she even mentions the old movie "Gaslight" at one point, when Barrie figures out what he actually is, something many women don't do until it's far too late. NPDs (narcissistic personality disorders) just run down a checklist of prototypical behaviors and characteristics, and most of their devastating traits are described here with startling accuracy. I hope the author just did ample research for this character and didn't have one of these vampires in her life to draw from firsthand experience.
Solid three-star rating, but, honestly, it would have been three and a half but for how well-written it is, which is a solid feature of this author's works. The prose is engaging and descriptive, the characters are well-developed and sympathetic, and it likewise kept me interested and wanting to see what happens next, which isn't always the case with fictional novels, so I'll bump it up some for being very well-written, even if I didn't like it nearly as much as her other novels, which, unlike this one, I couldn't put down and which left me hungry for more.
