When Mina joins a troupe of travelling actors, her aim is to find her missing brother, but her search unlocks a series of secrets that will change the world she knows forever.Tarya, the mystical realm spoken of in tales, is real, and her gift for story telling opens a way to it. But Tarya has a shadow side, and someone in the troupe of actors is using it to harm people. Mina soon realises she may … realises she may be the only one with the power to stop them. Harlequin’s Riddle is the first book in a Young Adult fantasy trilogy about the gift of creativity and where it can take you.
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It is a stark fact that for the last few decades the major players in the book publishing industry have chosen to be led by their sales teams, and commissioning editors must bow to their publisher’s bottom line. Editors may fall in love with a story, want to praise it from the rooftops, but they are stuck with having to tell the author the harsh truth that their sales department, not known for vision and decidedly risk averse, have deemed the work unsaleable. It happens time and again that a truly great work slips through the cracks and ends up – because it IS truly a great work – being picked up by one of the lesser known small presses. If you want to read excellent original fiction, hunt out works released by reputable small presses.
Harlequin’s Riddle is one of those books, for Rachel Nightingale has composed a work of remarkable vision and depth of insight, a work narrated in an accessible and enchanting style; gentle, inviting, sensory, like silk and gossamer. The pace is slow at first, but never meandering, and quickens at each plot point, as what begins as a quest evolves into a dark mystery.
Harlequin’s Riddle is a story of illusion and make believe in art and theatre. The novel opens with Mina watching a travelling theatre troupe perform in her village as she misses her older brother, Paolo, who took off with a troupe a decade before, and never returned. She was seven when he left, and she’s seventeen when with her mother’s blessing she joins the theatre troupe in the hope of finding him. The reader is swept along on the aspirations, hopes and dreams of innocence, a false innocence for Mina’s childhood scars are many, and the grief and anguish and betrayal are buried so deep Mina is numb to them, until they surface and form a destabilising force, propelling her into understanding and ultimately wholeness.
Despite the fictitious setting, Nightingale paints an evocative portrait of medieval Italy with its rugged coastline, its quaint villages, forests and northern lakes. The author’s depiction of the theatre troupe with their colourful sets and costumes is vibrant and alive and enthralling, the reader provided a privileged view, looking over Mina’s shoulder at the other players and the audience. Much of the story involves the travellers journeying in their wagons to the Festival of Lights held in the large city of Aurea, and again, the reader is swept along for the ride as the troupe cope with various dramas and adventures along the way. There is much here to entertain every reader, young and old, the final quarter of the novel dripping with visual splendour.
On another level, Harlequin’s Riddle is less a tale of Mina’s quest to find her brother, and more a study of the nature of imagination and creativity, that curious moment of conjuring, bringing into being that which we inwardly see, and seeing that which we inwardly describe – words and pictures, which comes first? The creative process, at the moment of conception, differs between the arts and among artists, but always there is a point of manifestation and it is this that fills the pages of Harlequin’s Riddle.
Coupled with the theme of creativity and the creative process are ideas of spirituality and healing, the very quality we access when we transcend ordinary reality in creative imaginative acts, is also a powerful source of beneficial transformation and healing. Nightingale calls this multidimensional realm Tarya. It is what esotericists call the ‘inner planes’, and it is here that the deeper essence of Harlequin’s Riddle is apparent.
Entering Tarya involves altering your state of awareness, undergoing an out of body experience, and engaging in astral travel. Tarya is the realm of the shaman, the magus, the trickster, the psychopomp. Here is a small taste of Tarya.
“A subtle buzzing of hidden energy surrounded her. She looked down on distant mountains, and nearby trees, and people, many people, and each shape glimmered with light, layer upon layer of light, blurring outlines of real objects. There were intricate spiderwebs laid across the whole scene, gold threads wrapped around and over everything.”
In the villages, the players are feared for it is known they have occult or arcane power, one that destroys as it sets out to give joy. Unlike the players, Mina has the gift of storytelling, and she accesses Tarya differently, going far beyond the realms accessed by the players, realms that are connected to the living earth, to enter the purer planes of existence, where spiritual wisdom resides. This innate ability sets her apart, leads her into danger and ultimately drives her quest.
There is much to reflect on in Harlequin’s Riddle, and much to appreciate. Harlequin’s Riddle is a story to lose yourself in, and can be read on many levels. It isn’t necessary to understand anything about the occult or arcani to appreciate the novel, although the astute reader will recognise Harlequin’s Riddle as a transpersonal journey, one of initiation and healing. Nightingale has penned a unique and exquisite tale that deserves to be widely known, a story with a depth of awareness and understanding that will hold special appeal to those with an interest in alternative spiritualities. In the final analysis, Harlequin’s Riddle a work of intelligence and refinement that I can only compare to an Ursula le Guin, with overtones of Umberto Eco in theme but not in compositional style. A visionary fiction masterpiece.
When actors perform they bring a magical element, entering the dreamscape of Tarya, to add potency to their tale. When Mina joins a group of traveling players in an attempt to locate her long-lost brother, she discovers much more – including the dark side of the powers she is using.
Anyone who is creative or has been asked “where did that idea come from?” and you answered dreams, will never see it the same way again.
This is a very original and well-written story. It was one of my top reads of 2019 and if you want fresh, original high fantasy where the world building is top notch, you must check out this series.
A fantasy world that is original and different and with the ability to scare us just a little while keeping the pages turning. A really good read.
A stunning first fantasy in a series of three books, with fascinating world building in the context of a world half recognized. The story touches upon the intersections of acting and real life in the context of a young woman on a journey of self discovery. It is an unforgettable read, delving deeply into the complex dynamics of imagination, dreams, the unconscious, and theater, with lines such as this: “She was the narrator; not a person, but the spirit of story.”
A wonderfully engaging and deftly told tale, Harlequin’s Riddle is at its heart a story about the power and magic of creativity. The story opens with seventeen-year-old Mina wanting to leave her family and birthplace – Andon, an isolated seaside town in this well realised fantasy world. It is not only because she is on the brink of adulthood and “bored with the steady, unchanging routine of her days, longing for colour and change”, but because she also hopes to solve a mystery. When Mina was a child of seven, Paolo, her beloved brother, joined a troupe of travelling players and vanished from her life. Now another troupe players comes to her village, and their leader invites Mina to join them. The troupe’s arrival awakes in Mina painful memories of her childhood – memories confirmed by her father when he confesses he stopped her telling stories as a child. He stopped her, with violence, because of his fear of her power; through the very act of her storytelling, Mina brings to life her stories. Drawn to the players because of their colour, their mystery, their promise of excitement, and also hoping she might find out what happened to her brother by travelling with them, Mina packs her bag to begin her adventure of discovery.
Mystery is one of the driving forces of this novel. With Mina, the reader attempts to unravel the mystery of her brother’s disappearance alongside the sinister mystery of the players themselves. Mina learns from the travelling players that her storytelling gift comes from Tarya, a realm of mystery; a realm where dreams become true. By the time the reader reaches the final page, Mina has truly seized her power as a storyteller. It is a power that – despite painful betrayals by those she gave her trust and love – allows her to pursue the mystery of her brother’s fate, and her own destiny.
Clearly written with a lot of passion, this is an impressive debut novel from a gifted storyteller. Nightingale weaves into the fabric of her novel an almost philosophical pondering about the power of creativity in all its forms. I’m now eagerly waiting for book two.