1950s England. Five-year-old Gracie Scott lives with her Mam and next door to her best friend Billy. An only child, she has never known her Da. When her Uncle Joe moves in, his physical abuse of Gracie’s mother starts almost immediately. But when his attentions wander to Gracie, an even more sinister pattern of behaviour begins. As Gracie grows older, she finds solace and liberation in books, … books, poetry and her enduring friendship with Billy. Together they escape into the poetic fairy-tale worlds of their imaginations.
But will fairy tales be enough to save Gracie from Uncle Joe’s psychopathic behaviour – and how far will it go?
Seas of Snow is a haunting, psychological domestic drama that probes the nature and the origins of evil.
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There were times when I was reading Seas of Snow that I felt the menace of Joe so tangibly, I almost had to set the book aside. To say he is villain would not do justice to the depth of his depravity. I’m not saying the character is in any lacking in authenticity, merely that I don’t remember encountering such pure evil on the written page. It is a credit to Ms. Jennings’ imagination that she could conceive of someone who has all the appearance of a flesh and blood human being—with stunning good looks, to boot—who is in fact a bloodless sociopath.
Compare Joe with his sister and you see both sides of the human spectrum. She is a kind, gentle woman who has a lovely blond angel for a daughter. They are alone, but they feel blessed to have each other. As we learn, Gracie is the joy of her life, a gift that makes up for the pain and suffering inflicted on her by Joe, who tormented her systematically as she was growing up.
In spite of being the sole support for Gracie, she makes sure Gracie’s home life is loving and nurturing. It is their good fortune to have Billy—two years older than Gracie—next door. As soon as Gracie can walk, she and Billy frolic around their neighborhood, finding mystery and magic at every turn. Billy is constantly creating new games for them to play, spinning dreamscapes to enchant and enthrall the angelic Gracie.
Gracie’s innocence leaves her unprepared for mean-spirited encounters from nature and fellow human beings. She gets glimpses of the dark side, first from a raven, then from her classmates at school. As frightening and puzzling as these episodes are, they do nothing to prepare her for evil personified as her Uncle Joe lays claim to their home, and them.
There are many layers of wonder in this novel. Gracie is a wonder all to herself. She is as we hope every child can be: good-natured, curious, kind and appreciative of nature’s beauty. The closest she gets to an impure thought is to wonder why two girls in her class are so mean to her. Her only flaw is that she’s perhaps to pure and gentle for the real world.
Contrasting sharply to Gracie is Joe’s absolute disdain for humanity. Everyone who walks the earth is there merely to either annoy him or to be a conduit for his insatiable craving to humiliate and defile. I’ll leave it at that; I simply cannot do this force of evil in human form justice the way the author has. All I can say is brace yourself.
What really stands out in Seas of Snow is the author’s ability to weave together a story that flashes back and forth in time, doling out insights into her characters as they pursue their separate paths to destiny. The deeper I got into the book, the more drawn in I became. Ms. Jennings acts the spider to the reader, coaxing them into a web of peril and doubt, beauty and innocence, random and preordained.
never could figure out why she was dying
This book was like a train wreck…I couldn’t put it down but it was so disturbing, it raised my anxiety. It certainly earns it’s classification as a thriller, that’s for sure!