There are strange, magical things happening at St Hauda’s Land, the place where the book The Girl With Glass Feet by Ali Shaw is set.
It is a cold, obscure, forgotten island, where the the locals are few and the tourists fewer. One of the main characters, Ida MacLaird, came as a tourist once. She has returned during the winter to look for answers for the fate that has befallen her. Ida is slowly turning into glass.
Here she meets Midas Crook, a lonely islander who prefers the world through the lens of his camera.
Together they begin a journey which is doomed from the start.
Shaw paints a world with a brush that’s dipped in grey, with every sentence providing a feeling of an island winter.
The characters that inhabit this book, apart from the lead pair are every bit as interesting, if not more. Each having multiple facets which, when revealed, may leave you reeling. The writer has woven tales of interconnected characters that culminate into a story of profound sadness.
Common things, such as negatives of photographs, fall into the category of the extraordinary in Shaw’s world.
There is a plethora of details that you may miss during the first reading. Regret is not something you will feel if you pick up the book a second time.
The Girl With Glass Feet, by Ali Shaw, is the sort of book that will feel like a heart wrenching sigh against your palms, and you’ll either adore the writer for it, or loathe him eternally.
I find myself leaning towards the former.
Love,
Until We Meet Again
asilverafternoon 