I'm out of step here. Everyone loves this book. Except me. Twice I've tried, and twice I've failed to get beyond page 41. The name of the main protagonist for example. 'Marvellous Ways'. Beyond irritating.

As if it were a school exercise, Sarah Winman chooses and polishes her adjectives and similes, and to me it all seems so forced, so fey. People I respect loved this book, so I must try it again sometime. Just not yet. ( )

Marvellous Ways lives on a Cornish creek in a caravan with a boat house and a church across the water. Francis Drake returns from France and the 2WW broken and Marvellous rescues him. The water cleanses and washes through the novel and the sense of the healing powers of nature and love are here as well as good bread. Peace, the baker, arrives later in the hamlet. Whimsical and magical with beautiful words, this novel flows along like a watery fairy tale. Marvellous tells the stories of her life and her three loves and conjures up magic. ( )

It is just after the Second World War and Marvellous Ways, a 90 year old woman, is living by herself next to a creek in a woody, remote area of Cornwall. She was a midwife and a healer and she has a touch of magic about her. She knows things... And she knows she's waiting for something but she doesn't know what.

Francis Drake is a 28 year old soldier who has just returned from France where he tried to forget what he saw. After suffering another traumatic event in London, Drake loses himself. Marvellous' finds him in a terrible state by her creek and she takes him in.

Together they share her world, tell their stories, and try to heal traumas.

This book seemed to have everything I could want: a strong female protagonist who's a bit odd, an interesting plot, and some magical realism thrown in. And yet it didn't hold my attention very well.

The writing was beautiful and lyrical in places -- and it was desperately ( )

Thank You Headline and Netgalley for allowing me to review this book.
I was a bit confused reading this book and still cannot fathom it out. I had to keep re reading lines as its a very poetical book. The bits I understood I enjoyed but I felt rather bewildered if I'm honest ( )

Thank You Headline and Netgalley for allowing me to review this book.
I was a bit confused reading this book and still cannot fathom it out. I had to keep re reading lines as its a very poetical book. The bits I understood I enjoyed but I felt rather bewildered if I'm honest ( )