A Gathering Light

Product Information

my good bookshelf “What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do. Jennifer Donnelly is the author of thirteen novels - Poisoned, Stepsister, Beauty and the Beast: Lost in a Book, These Shallow Graves, Sea Spell, Dark Tide, Rogue Wave, Deep Blue, Revolution, A Northern Light, The Tea Rose, The Winter Rose and The Wild Rose - and Humble Pie, a picture book for children. And, as she reads, a riveting story emerges - not only Grace Brown's story but also Mattie's hopes and ambitions for the future and her relationships with her friends and family. Adele Geras, Guardian 'Part history, part compelling murder mystery, Jennifer Donnelly's A GATHERING LIGHT brings the past to powerful and vivid life.

When a crime happens in a place where everyone knows each other, people are impacted in different ways- it felt believable, albeit poignant that a young woman’s life was unexpectedly taken.

Chas and his troubled mates flirt with danger, girls and law-breaking, in this humorous, gritty story that becomes an irresistible farce-come-thriller. A little note: "A Gathering Light" and "A Northern Light" are exactly the same book, the second one being the American original title. A Northern Light is one of those books you come across every few years; the type of novel that buries itself in your heart from the first page and simply lingers in your thoughts for days, weeks, and even months afterward. Although one of her best friends is an African American boy who is on his way to Columbia, Mattie doesn’t always treat her own family properly.

The letters of Grace Brown, the people around whom the story revolves and the inclusion of intriguing words from the dictionary make for an engrossing experience. After all, she had promised her dying mother she would never leave and she had a duty to help her pa with the chores and with raising her younger sisters. The gloom of the crippling effect of poverty which can lead to a hopelessness where your sense of self-worth disappears and anything goes if it will keep 'the wolf from the door' and then over-arching the whole novel, or perhaps underlying it as the unspoken ground of everything, is duty and responsibility. I also wondered whether he might be ‘Royal’ to represent the dangerous temptation of being rescued by a fairy-tale prince. And a fellow word-lover meself (actually, I can safely bet that whoever’s reading this review is also fond of words, right?The author could have instead written about the fictionalised Mattie and her family and I personally would have found that to be interesting enough to hold my attention.

Each of Mattie’s sisters has a personality that comes off the page; and her father is one of the strongest characters in the story. Jennifer worked with Disney again in 2017, when she released the NY Times bestselling "Lost in a Book," an original novel set in the world of the blockbuster film, "Beauty and the Beast.Because I savored every single word of it and only fell even more in love with it, so much that it's officially my No. I listened and read A Northern Light and give high marks to the narrator Hope Davis for capturing the varied emotions of youth and giving voice to the many characters who comprise this gem. While society pushes Mattie towards a life of love and comfort in a house with children, her own heart begins to push her that way too, which makes the decision to chase her dream that much more difficult.