Sherryl Jordan (1949–2023)

Medieval England, c.1346. Found wandering the streets as a child, Fox is taken in by a kind-hearted thief, and taught how to survive. Now he is on his own, a thief brand on his face for all to see. Turned away from honest work, or blamed when things go missing, he has no choice but to survive any way he can. “They were bitter years, my childhood… It was a fight every day to survive, to find food, to find a warm place to sleep. And always there was a rage in me, a burning rage against the injustice and wrong that had bound me to my life of felony… I have wrongs against people who have worked hard for what they have, who are robbed just so a child might eat. But I hate, too, the wrong that makes that child hungry in the first place”. Then Fox meets Wynter, water diviner, prisoner of her father. After finding much-needed water for a drought-stricken village, the village priest charges Wynter with witchcraft. Wynter and Fox flee together. When they stumble across an abandoned hut, they start to finally start feeling accepted by the nearby village of Ocken Underwood, before the past comes back to haunt them once again. Wynter or Fox tell the narrative of different chapters, and its great to hear their different perspectives. The medieval world is one of superstition and injustice but lived by the earth’s cycle and often the whim of the village priest. Jordan’s exploration and insight into this world is profound. Wynter’s Thief is great historical fiction, with heartfelt depth to the characters and understanding of circumstance. Highly recommended.… (mer)

This tale belongs to any time, even our own; it is about prejudice and it owner, and a young woman wrongly accused, who is guilty of only one thing—the unforgivable crime of being different.

Oh, moon-good beautiful. The abuse and pain of both Marnie and Raven are written so viscerally that, as headstrong and difficult as the characters may be, their innocence and vulnerability in society and circumstance so cruelly set against them make them people the reader yearns to see happy.

I love how Raven's deafness is portrayed here: he is seemingly impertinent and wild in not behaving 'normally', until it is discovered that the problem is not, in fact, in him, but rather in everyone else's ignorance of his inability to hear, and in his lack of a way to understand the hearing world in their abandonment of him. Thereafter, Marnie's patience and generosity in trying to give Raven a language he can see, and Raven's protectiveness of her and his boundless excitement, gradually develops into a quiet and fierce connection of souls.

The priest is also a beautifully-written character. Acting as an adopted father for what are essentially two orphans, he gives them food, and protection, and hope, and is also unexpectedly funny to boot.

Some of what happens in The Raging Quiet are difficult to read and leave a bitter aftertaste (and it certainly doesn't wait long to get into it), but the rawness of the more horrific scenes is countered by the sweetness of the characters and the tender care they have for each other.

Not stupid, he said. I know the word. Slowly, he put his hand over his face, his fingers slightly spread, so he could just look through. Not bad afraid, he said. Soft-afraid. Like a little bird when I hold out food to it. It wants to come, and it wants to fly away. Soft-afraid.

Overall, I hadn't expected to enjoy it so much, but this book was certainly a pleasant surprise. I'd recommend this to anyone who, like me, isn't usually fond of historical fiction!… (mer)