If I Told You Once by Judy Budnitz

If I Told You Once

Judy Budnitz

This unusual East meets West family saga presents motherhood as both a blessing and a curse. Right the way through to the end, I was trying to figure out what was real and what was perceived or imagined. Ultimately, it's a dark and intriguing novel, rich in both language and detail. Would appeal to someone who enjoys either fantasy or contemporary fiction or alternatively to a reader of traditional family stoires who is looking for a change.

Extract
I had never been outside my village, but I knew there were places that were different. I had glimpsed them in the egg, and in the words of the bandit in the woods .... I saw him lying in the snow, sunk deep as if in a feather mattress, his throat necklaced with blood and the mark of wolf's teeth.


After I had found him so, I went home and burned my wolf hood .... My mother watched but said nothing.


I would never have to feel her eyes again.

Parallels
  • The Virago Book of Fairy Tales by Angela Carter (ed)
  • The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
  • The Whore's Child by Richard Russo

Guilty Pleasures