A Merric’s Tale
by Margs Murray
I picked up this book because
the author grew up in the area I now live in. I was quite amused to find that
she had used place names from this area for both characters and places in the
book. It’s a silly little thing but it made me smile, and they were well
chosen, not forced into the story. You won’t notice if you don’t already know
the names.
I did not have a sense of what
it was about other than some sort of fantasy and I thought it was a YA book. I
was right, and yet I was elated with the combination of elements that she
brought to play in the story.
It is a really fascinating YA
read. There’s an Alice in Wonderland surreal feeling but at the same time the
main character, Waverly, is dealing with the very real and gritty, heartbreak
of dementia. Her grandmother claims to be the “Princess and Royal Heiress to
the Kingdom of America.” The diagnosis is Alzheimer’s, but Waverly thinks there
is something more going on.
Great-uncle Bollard arrives and
offers Waverly a position with his company. Waverly hopes that he might be able
to offer some insight into her grandmother’s condition, or some special doctors.
Just the same, she decides not to go. Her parents forbid it. And yet, in the
course of a few minutes, everything changes and she is gone.
The ensuing setting calls to
mind Alice in Wonderland for me. It is incredibly surreal. Darker elements take
hold and we begin to get the sense that perhaps Great-uncle Bollard isn’t as
altruistic as he would have Waverly believe. What does he really want from her?
Great-uncle Bollard’s mansion
is full of the pageantry and excesses of the royalty in the 1600s. A sense of
horror grows as Waverly finds out the truth and sets out to escape her
Great-uncle’s clutches. The second half of the book is highly reminiscent of
thrillers about evading Germans in France during World War II. However, Waverly
is not alone and a romance begins, aided by circumstances and proximity. But is
it one-sided?
There were some formatting
issues, an extra line between paragraphs in some parts of the book, and a single
tab indent on some paragraphs while others had a double tab. It was slightly
distracting but not enough to pull from my enjoyment of the book. If you can
ignore that, it's a captivating read. In fact, as the book went on, I felt
myself trying to read faster and faster, willing to stay up late to get to the
end.
Unfortunately, knowing some
people who get very angry at cliffhangers, I do have to warn that there is one
here. Something good happens, then something bad happens, and quite suddenly it’s
the end of the book! I admit that I was slightly annoyed.
Here's hoping the second book
is in production. I thoroughly enjoyed this one, and can't wait for the
next.
