Fiction is full of characters falling in and out of love. Less common, at least outside the realm of slushy romantic comedies, are novels in which lovers go their separate ways, voluntarily or otherwise, and later reunite to revive what they lost. <\/p>\n
H.S. Cross\u2019 new novel, \u201cAmanda,\u201d is about two individuals, Marion and Jamie, who seem destined to experience love a second time around, providing they can overcome their differences, share their secrets and banish their personal demons. The book charts a torrid affair and a period of separation, from both characters\u2019 perspectives. Then Jamie embarks on a mission to find Marion again \u2014 but does she even want to be found?<\/p>\n
In Cross\u2019 first section, the focus is on Marion. It is the summer of 1926 and she has come to London to lie low and move on. But her past is not easy to forget.<\/p>\n
Born in Galway, she eloped with a man, then left him when he turned abusive. She fled Ireland \u2014 \u201cthe whole magic-pocked landmass\u201d \u2014 and ended up in Oxford, where she changed her identity, discovered a sense of purpose and started a relationship with student Jamie. Then, abruptly and inexplicably, she disappeared, breaking Jamie\u2019s heart in the process.<\/p>\n
The novel\u2019s second section revolves around Jamie. He has his work cut out for him as headmaster at St. Stephen\u2019s Academy, a failing school in \u201ca haunted pocket of Yorkshire.\u201d But he has more pressing problems. He is plagued by nightmares about the horrors he endured in the war; he is increasingly aware of an unbridgeable gulf between himself and his father; and he is at a loss without Marion \u2014 that is, until he learns from her friend that she is working as a governess in London. <\/p>\n
The book gathers pace and builds in intensity in its third and final part. Alternating her characters\u2019 viewpoints, Cross dangles the prospect of a reunion between Marion and Jamie while simultaneously creating obstacles in their paths. <\/p>\n
Cross also creates obstacles for her reader. \u201cAmanda\u201d may seem like a conventional story of longing and loss. In fact, it is a more complex work. The narrative skips backward and forward in time. Characters adopt alter egos for themselves or invent nicknames for others. Marion, a \u201crunagate\u201d who has distanced herself from \u201cIrish whisper circuits,\u201d cannot escape the condemnatory voices of \u201cthe Talkers\u201d in her head, and her inner turmoil occasionally manifests itself in clotted thought processes and disorientating exchanges.<\/p>\n
In the end, Cross\u2019 creative risks pay off. Her novel is both stimulating and affecting. There are welcome nods to the Michigan-born author\u2019s previous novels, along with numerous literary references, including Jane Austen\u2019s classic tale of rekindled passion, \u201cPersuasion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fiction is full of characters falling in and out of love. Less common, at least outside the realm…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[288,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-43751","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}