I think it was late February when my local Waterstone's Book Club had chosen this book; I was in fact over the moon since secretly I had been eyeing this book up quite often on countless trips. It's strange almost how it was a love affair between myself and this book, but perhaps ironic, as if I were Gabe watching Viviane from afar, the blurb was almost a reminder of the past, with a haunting synopsis that I was intrigued by, but unsure I had enough courage to just reach out and take it. A girl born with wings, as the cover shows in a tremendous varieties of blue, it sadly shows how blue is a colour of sorrows and sadness, making it seem less like a fantasy but a story of loss and sadness, which was true in how love makes us fools, again shown on the cover.
The story does not only follow Ava Lavender but also the history of her origin. This was all seen almost from her eyes, but yet how could this be? The mystery almost causes this paradox, but yet draws you in further and further, making it such a gripping read.
I remember reading it; so gripping and intriguing with historical romance elements almost dating from 1900s-1950s. Reading one evening I remember, I think I might have only read a chapter, yet on the way back from college on the bus I looked into it further, reading and reading, and by the time I arrived at my stop I think I must have legged it home just to read this book, not emerging from my room for two, maybe three, hours.
A novel as engrossing as this has several key characters, but yet I find the first of the central characters intriguing, they have no name, so the reader is only able to recognise them as Maman Roux perhaps. Her character didn't really intrigue me at all, but she was perhaps the perfect set up for the women who were her decedents; perhaps hosting the pattern to what would happen to these women. Emilienne came second, but for me personally she was a character which I felt connected to deeply and entirely, with the losses of all the loves of her life and her heart cut apart, unable to open fully again for a man who could adore her, left with only the ghosts of her past and the determination to drive forth her future, I purely could not get enough of her and wanted to almost know her, be her and live her life. Walton's writing style is full of metaphors and interesting language, which causes this gripping and hypnotic style which latches onto your body and soul with a consuming passion; my mind was unable to think clearly for days after.
Finally to the third woman of this tragic love and life, Vivienne, a woman much like Maman which lost herself in love to one… one true love with consuming blindness. Finally, moving onto Ava, the heroine of the story. Ava, unlike the women before her, doesn't hold away from the world, there is no wall of separating herself due to her innocence and open mindedness of the world, but perhaps this was her downfall and the thing which opened the rest of the women's eyes.
Leslye Walton's work and words were beautiful and honest, her metaphors and imagery shows so much more, enabling us as readers to finally become engrossed and lost in a time long gone and yet, a world which perhaps no one wished to enter. A story like this becomes so much more with how in the truth of the world, we, not only Ava Lavender, all have the strange and beautiful sorrows which tell our own lives. Love, although it can make us, create others, engross us, it can also break us, whilst being the only thing which can mend that broken soul.
If you haven't read this book and yet you wish to become fully engrossed in a story which will become so much more and enter your heart as a reminder of love and the importance of it in our lives, I suggest you read it as soon as you can. As a debut novel, I am now so much more eager to see what else this author will come out with, and I am sure it will be beautiful reminder and image of the true world which we live in. All I know now is that I wish to thank Leslye Walton for creating a masterpiece and what I hope will one day be a classic.
• Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop.
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