Orkney by Amy Sackville

Orkney

Amy Sackville

If you love folk tales, prepare to fall slowly but inescapably under a spell. The obsessional love of an old man for his young wife plays out like a richly textured dream. Sky and sea, light and storm are woven with the characters into a gorgeous, tragic web.

Extract
She has her face turned towards the sun, where it trails and tingles the water. Listening for the wash of light. The air luminescent and she glowing with it. She seems at home here; she belongs. 'Take me north,' she said. And so it seems that my honeymoon is to be occupied by a series of seascapes with a woman at their centre: sometimes a girl, sometimes no more than a brightness quivering against the coming rain; or in the sudden northern sun, with a halo of white fire and her hair flaming; with her hair blown back; standing with her palms by her sides, turned out to feel the sea-mist borne in on the wind; with her chin resting on her clasped hands.
Parallels
  • Diving Belles by Lucy Wood
  • The Antelope Wife by Louise Erdrich
  • Hadrian's Memoirs by Marguerite Yourcenar
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Explicit sexual content