I must say at once that romantic fiction is not my drug of choice, but now and again I'm willing to have a go if something catches my fancy. Back in April I was intrigued by the many blog discussions of Linda Gillard's venture into e-publishing, and downloaded her House of Silence, which I ended up enjoying a lot. Linda has had the most wonderful success, with House of Silence reaching number one in the Kindle Romantic Suspense category -- she's sold many thousands of copies and will no doubt sell many more. So when Emotional Geology was republished in the same format, I bought it straight away -- only £1.90/$2.99 and you don't even need a Kindle to read it (I haven't got one).
And I loved it! This is the story of Rose, a textile artist in her early 40s. Rose is bi-polar, and, recovering from a serious breakdown, has decided to move to a remote island off the coast of Scotland where she hopes the peace and quiet will help her to live the kind of life she longs for. On the island she meets Callum, a schoolteacher and a poet, and they are instantly attracted to each other. But both of them are carrying a great deal of emotional baggage, which threatens to stand in the way of their achieving happiness together.
When you sum it up like that it sounds like a fairly standard romance plot. But what impressed me so much about this novel was the skill of its construction. We learn early on that Rose has emerged from a passionate, turbulent and ultimately unhappy love affair and cannot shake off her memories. But the full details of her past are revealed gradually, in flashbacks, poems and dreams, so the complete picture doesn't emerge until almost the very end. Structurally, then, the novel resembles one of Rose's fabric paintings or quilts -- a collage of scraps which gradually coalesce to form a recognisable image. As for the progress of Rose and Callum's relationship, I was absolutely convinced by the reality of it -- their powerful physical attraction being constantly counteracted by the inability of both of them to shake off the bonds of their complicated and unhappy pasts. This is a story about grown-ups, and all the better for it.