Sunday, February 8

Winter - John Marsden

At the age of sixteen Winter De Salis has returned to her childhood home, the country property of Warriewood. She has been living with relatives since her parents died in a car accident when she was a small child, and now the feelings she has had, of absence and loss and being forcebly kept from what is hers, are abating. As she settles into the house memories begin to return, and as she roams the property she discovers corruption and mismanagement. More importantly, she learns that the story she's been told about her parents isn't entirely true, and she learns an unspeakable secret.
Reminiscent in its style (though not content) to Daphne De Maurier's Rebecca, Winter's story unfolds gently, with well-placed touches of not quite Had I But Known. Winter herself is a somewhat unsympathetic protagonist, not unlike Mary, the protagonist of Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden. Though not petulant and sulky like Mary, Winter sounds like she wouldn't have been much fun to raise, and she seems to lack any number of basic interpersonal skills. That said she's quite likeable, which is quite a trick to pull off.
I prefer Marsden's similarly-structured novel Checkers (which I found really powerful on the first reading), and his more substantial works (like the Tomorrow series) to Winter but I'm not unhappy I read it. - Alex

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