Penny Dolan is a wonderful writer whose books include the gripping and beautiful romp, 'A Boy Called M.O.U.S.E'. So I'm thrilled to have this generous review from her, as she is no slouch in the writing stakes and knows what she is talking about.
You can read my review of A Boy Called M.O.U.S.E here.
A STERKARM TRYST by Susan Price, reviewed by Penny Dolan
Susan Price’s long-awaited
YA novel A STERKARM TRYST has now been published.
So, because I loved the world of
the 16th Century Border Reivers that was brilliantly evoked in the two
earlier titles - THE STERKARM HANDSHAKE and A STERKARM KISS - I
bought a copy of this third novel, and was not disappointed.
Earlier events and confrontations are woven lightly into the plot,
allowing new readers and re-readers slip easily into this particular storyline. This is science fiction with excellent
time-travelling!
The trilogy has an interesting premise: James Windsor, a late 21st
Century entrepreneur, intended to use his company’s Time Tube to colonise and
exploit the unspoilt lands of the past.
Windsor thought his men would easily
secure such a
backward territory - and then they met the Sterkarms. Of all the feuding
families in the Debatable Lands, the Sterkarms are the most treacherous:
everyone knows that a Sterkarm handshake might promise friendship with
the right hand
while the left hand carries a blade to slide between your ribs.
At first, the Sterkarms treat
the 21st century intruders with wary respect, deciding these strangers must be
Elves. After all, they can appear and disappear, dress in unknown
materials, and carry magic pills that take away pain. And from these "Elvenkind" springs the relationship that stands at the heart of the novels.
Andrea Mitchell, a 21st Century
anthropologist, finds the love of her life in Per Sterkarm, the family
heir, and at the start of THE STERKARM TRYST, she has come through time to
her lover again, though uncertain of any welcome.
Known as his "Entraya", his Elf-May,
she has a hard task. She has to warn Per
and the Sterkarm family that a deadly new enemy has entered their lands.
Windsor has time-travelled a group of Sterkarms from an almost parallel
time dimension into this one. These are warriors who know this wild
landscape as they do, and who fight with matching ferocity and who look
just as
they do. They will know all the Sterkarm tricks, and Windsor is behind
them.
How can Andrea even explain this phenomenon?
How can a Sterkarm attack another to whom - it seems - they owe loyalty?
And how, I wondered, can a writer manage two
almost-identical casts?
Susan Price does. Carefully,
scene by scene, she moves the action forward, resolving what the reader wants
resolved, and ending with treachery getting what it deserves. The headings keep the
story straight and satisfying in its conclusions.
However, I must say that the plot was not the
only thing that made A STERKARM TRYST a compelling experience for
me. Within the storytelling, I
heard rich echoes of the traditions, superstitions and legends of the
Border
Ballads, as well as the languages and voices of the region and its past.
Humour is there too, within the pages, as well as moments when the
differences between the
present and the past are suddenly very evident.
Moreover, the dramatic landscape of
the book is recognisably that of the Borders, an area of wild uplands and
uncertain weather, a place where cattle-raids were then part of the culture,
and where hunger was a constant threat.
I enjoyed being within that way of
life, following the descriptions of an active community
and culture, along with glimpses of cooking methods, housekeeping and
textiles, herbal lore, fear and superstition. Captured in the writing
too, was the importance
of respectful behaviour and right words and acting according to your
status: the sense of a time and place where any perceived insult
might mean death.
A STERKARM TRYST feels
a very physical story. It moves through camps and hovels and
crowded stone towers, past
the stink of unwashed clothes and the gutting of meat and the hard lives
and gory deaths
of men and women: this is not a benign or moral fairy-tale. Besides,
survival depends on a reputation for cunning and treachery, especially
when there
are two lots of Sterkarms riding out, as well as Windsor’s thugs and
their 21st Century weapons.
Yet, reading the book from the
comfort of
home - and despite all the violence - it is hard not to admire the
warmth and
energy and the bonds of family loyalty and protection within the
Sterkarm clan. Like Andrea/Entraya, I found the Sterkarms beguiling, and
welcomed the many characters that
Susan Price has created – Toorkild, Lady
Isobel, Sweet Milk, Gobby, Mistress Crosar, Joan Grannam, Davy, Cho and more - each one entirely
convincing, for all their faults.
Especially that blue-eyed,
fair-haired hero, Per May Sterkarm. And Cuddy. I have to mention them. Read the
book and you’ll discover why.
Penny Dolan.
All three titles,
including THE STERKARM TRYST, are published by OpenPress in a
handsomely-matching set of covers or as e-books.
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