Eve Green

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One of the most beautiful books I have ever read. One that I go back to again and again when I need to be reminded that the world is a fantastic place. When I need to taste the countryside in my sometimes stifling urban environment. I mentioned this book in an earlier review of 'When the Earth Hums in B Flat', as that one was also set in rural Wales. Here it is written of in Summer also, when I think it is most bewitching and unexpected, as Wales is never really thought of without greenness and dampness as its definition.
Of course, love is here too. Eve Green is a girl born of a hushed love-making, her mother dies very young whereupon Eve is brought to Wales.

'...Did I cry? No. But a
secret part of me unfurled up on the ridge that afternoon.
My loss billowed out before me, snapping at itself and
pulling me with it, streaming out over the sheep hills like
a funeral flag caught in the strong Welsh wind.'

Susan Fletcher's writing is alluring and poetic. She was young when she wrote this book (it won the Whitbread First Novel Award) and the language is sometimes a bit self-conscious, but this really suits the book, it feels like Eve Green is so real. Some phrases are heart-stoppingly lovely, but have a strangely shy air to them, as if these are words that Susan Fletcher saved for a long time and reluctantly decided to share.
I am very glad she did. This is also a book of grief, and the universal truth that time passes, and wounds heal, and if they scar, that they don't hurt any more.
Highly recommended, I know that Rebecca at Teacups, Cupcakes loved it too.