Review: A Jarful of Angels

This, my friends, is a debut novel. One that has wonderfully lyrical prose, a wafting air of foreboding and melancholy mixed in with the high spirits of the characters. The suspense is quiet, but it keeps you glued to your seat in order to figure out exactly what has happened, what will happen, and more importantly, why.

In a small Welsh village, four youngsters of widely different backgrounds have forged a strong bond. There's Bessie, the spoiled pretty one, with her golden ringlets and fondness for sweets; Iffy, blithely unconcerned with her poor background and the whispers that surrounded her paternity and her mother's disappearance; Fatty, ever in search of mischief and quick with the retort; and Billy, who never speaks at all but understands everything that happens. It's the summer of 1963 and the children are not only making up their own adventures, but finding them where they least expect it--and with people they shouldn't be anywhere near. Like Carty Annie, the old woman who might be quite mad. She has jars and jars of odd looking objects. What are they, and what secrets do they hold? And as spooky occurrences pile up and secrets threaten to be revealed, one of the four children disappears.

Forty years later, the child's disappearance haunts retired policeman Will Sloane. He's decamped to Spain, still mourning his long-dead wife and now not far from his own death. That discovery spurs him to return home, to revisit his old haunts, and to find out just what happened to the vanished child.

Although the mystery persists--the reader is kept in the dark for 2/3 of the book as to who exactly is the missing one--A JARFUL OF ANGELS more about atmosphere, and even more about the lives of young children. The prose truly captures each child's voice, how the simplest adventures can be elevated into high drama, and how real drama scares them all the more. Horton also excels at portraying just how the infrastructure of secrets and lies permeates the entire village--as the revelations mount, it almost seems like the village is torn apart, layer by layer.

This book also reminded me, interestingly enough, of Lucy Maud Montgomery's novels, which still rank among my very favorites. This is because of the way the children are portrayed, huddling together in a small town many years past, and because of the parallels of the Welsh countryside with the small towns of Prince Edward Island that Montgomery knew so well. A JARFUL OF ANGELS is a remarkable debut, and it would be a shame to miss it.

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Sarah - RAM

Book Review: A Jarful of Angels