Most English books about – or based in – Wales aren’t very good. I once read an English book about Wales and it was outstandingly bad. However, there are some exceptions, and Longbow Girl is one of them. The author is Linda Davies, and this was the first book I had read by her. The book was published earlier this year so it’s still quite new. I think this book is mostly aimed at adventurous girls, but I think some boys might like it too.
The book’s genre is thriller, though not in the narrowest sense; instead of being about guns and car chases it’s about longbows and galloping across the countryside. I think its genre is thriller because it’s adventurous, and about travelling backwards and forwards through time. Even so, some aspects of it remind me of crime writing.
I think the author has been strongly influenced by Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings, because Merry is also the name of a Hobbit from Lord of the Rings, a hidden treasure is the key to the book’s plot, and the Black Castle is very reminiscent of Mordor, the castle that overshadows Middle Earth. I find the fact that Merry has been made female interesting, because there are no significant female characters in Lord of the Rings.
The main character is Merry Owen. She lives on a farm with her family in Wales. Her family are deadly enemies with the family that live opposite them in the Black Castle. The two families have been enemies for centuries, always disagreeing about land. Then Merry’s family find out that they owe the bank £60,000. They fear they will have to sell their land to be able to do this, and who would like to have their land but their enemies the de Courcys.
But then Merry finds a lost copy of the Mabinogion… I’m not going to say anymore in case it ruins the story. But one thing I will say is that the key themes in this book are: land, enemies, and time. Land, because the Owens and the de Courcys have always disagreed about land; enemies, because there are a lot of people with enemies in the book; and time, because Merry discovers a way of time travelling…
Merry Owen is a likable, believable character. She is amazing with a longbow and always manages to get a bullseye. She has been training with a longbow since she was three years old (in the book she’s fifteen), because the Owen family have always been famous for good longbow men (but before Merry, never longbow girls). Another of the main characters is James de Courcy; he lives in the Black Castle but, unlike his mum and dad he is not enemies with the Owens – in fact he and Merry are good friends. He is very good at football and at the end of the book he gets signed for Manchester United’s team.
The book is set in the Welsh countryside near Sarn Helen, a Roman road built to link forts 2,000 years ago. Sarn Helen runs through Capel Bangor, Llanfihangel y Creuddun, Lledrod, and more. These places are quite close to Aberystwyth, but it also goes down as far as the Breon Beacons where Longbow Girl is set.
The narrative viewpoint of the book is third person; it is omniscient so it knows the characters’ thoughts. When I first read this book, I wanted to read on because of the suspense the author created in the opening paragraph. She wrote:
Merry Owen saw a dark figure vault over the ancient boundary wall between her family’s farm and the Black Castle. The old enemy, trespassing on her land again ... coming her way. She was alone but she had her longbow. An ancient weapon of war that had won battles and saved kings for a thousand years, and was still lethal today. In her hands at least.
This opening makes the reader want to find out who the trespasser is, and the only way to find this out is to read on. Also this paragraph introduces two of the key themes: enemies and land. The author introduces the theme enemies where she says ‘The old enemy’. This makes me want to find out who is the enemy, and how are they the old enemy. She introduces land by saying ‘trespassing on her land again’. When I read this I wanted to know when it had happened before and why had it happened.
I enjoyed reading Longbow Girl because it’s fun, adventurous and interesting. But remember, Longbow Girl is an exception, it’s not like the usual English books you will read about Wales; Longbow Girl is outstandingly good.
- Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop
