Isn’t it wonderful when you hear about a book you’re certain you’ll love.
Isn’t it awesome when you are granted a copy to read and review before most folk get to read it? (Thank you Harper Collins and Edelweiss+)
Isn’t it amazing when you love it even MORE than you thought humanly possible?
Isn’t it brilliant to be able to shout about it and tell people how amazing it is? And isn’t it hard to find the right words to do it justice?
To say I adored this book is a gross understatement, I devoured it and it satisfied every need.
First, it is fantasy realism which is utterly believable. There is really only the one element of fantasy - the premise that real memories can be taken from your mind by binders who create them into a book which allows all your worst most hurtful memories to be hidden, even from yourself, forever.
It is set in an unnamed historical era which feels like late 1800s. Peopled with many wonderful characters I fell in love with, several whom I loathed and one completely despicable, loathsome wretch I despised so much I shook when I read about him.
It is a work of literary genius, so beautifully written it made my soul ache.
Emmett is a farmers son, working the land on the family farm he has recently been best by ill health leaving him weak and barely able to think straight let alone do the heavy physical work labouring on the farm he loves alongside his sister Alta, the sibling he squabbles with but will do virtually anything for.
When an offer of an apprenticeship reaches him he is aghast at the thought of learning to be a book binder, one of the rare few who can take other people thoughts and bind them into books. He doesn’t want to learn this job, he doesn’t want to leave his family and live out on the marsh in the bookbinder Seredith’s rambling old house. But he goes, because he is given little say in the matter and because deep down he knows it makes sense.
The book is in 3 distinct parts, the first part introduces us to Emmett as we learn about his new trade alongside him, it’s quite slow paced and has a dreamlike quality as Emmett faces great change and makes a gradual recovery from the nameless malady which beset him for so long it eases us into the story, introduces Julian Darnay, leads us through Emmetts world and lulls us into a sense of false security thinking this is going be a steady, intriguing rather gentle book. OH NO IT ISN’T!!
The second and third parts take us back in time, before he was a binder, before he really knew what books were, before he really knew who and what he was, and as you begin to bite your lip, and hold your breath you realise exactly what it means to be a binder and to be bound and the pace increases and sharpens and begins to writhe and twist and deceive.
Love and passion and deception all play a part in this phenomenally breathtaking book which is an exquisite love story, an intriguing mystery with touches of depravity and cruelty which enraged and distressed me, whilst breathing the wonder of new love into my hardened soul.
The 3rd part – well you’ll have to read it to find out, suffice to say I read the second part with my breath held tightly and my heart beating far too fast than is good for me. By the time I read part 3 it felt as though I had STOPPED breathing altogether.
There was not one moment during this story that I managed to breathe properly and my heart hasn't yet stopped pounding (and OMG Splodge!)
Perfection on paper!
I think this is a book everyone will be talking about and will have fans from 15 to 150 quivering like mayfly as they gasp and shudder their way through The Binding.
The Blurb
Imagine you could erase your grief.
Imagine you could forget your pain.
Imagine you could hide a secret.
Forever.
Emmett Farmer is working in the fields when a letter arrives summoning him to begin an apprenticeship. He will work for a Bookbinder, a vocation that arouses fear, superstition and prejudice – but one neither he nor his parents can afford to refuse.
He will learn to hand-craft beautiful volumes, and within each he will capture something unique and extraordinary: a memory. If there’s something you want to forget, he can help. If there’s something you need to erase, he can assist. Your past will be stored safely in a book and you will never remember your secret, however terrible.
In a vault under his mentor’s workshop, row upon row of books – and memories – are meticulously stored and recorded.
Then one day Emmett makes an astonishing discovery: one of them has his name on it.
THE BINDING is an unforgettable, magical novel: a boundary-defying love story and a unique literary event.
It won't be out until 2019 but it really isn't too early to put your name on a copy now.
Read more about it on the publishers website
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