I don't often write book recommendations {I leave that to H over at La Vie of Me} but after finishing The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey I had to at least put it on my readers' radars.
It took me only two days to read but had I not been crazy busy I probably would have camped out and knocked it out in a day; I could hardly put it down. Though it's booked as a modern version of Bronte's Jane Eyre there's not reason to be alarmed. This isn't like one of the many insipid retellings of Pride & Prejudice cluttering up the fiction shelves.
One of my favorite parts is the time Gemma spends in the remote Orkney Islands. Having spent a blustery week in November exploring the Orkney's I can say that Livesey's descriptive imagery is spot on. Vivid images of the rugged scenery swam before my eyes as I read. While it's true that you may not have the same emotional response I did, I'm confident that those of you who haven't traipsed around the Orkney Islands will still enjoy this poignant coming of age tale.
I probably haven't don't this book much justice so check out this snippet from the Kirkus Review:
A clever orphan girl, mistreated by relatives, then sent to suffer cruelly at boarding school, finds heartbreak and eventual heartsease with a brooding older man. Sound familiar? "Neither my autobiography nor a retelling of Jane Eyre," says Livesey (The House on Fortune Street, 2008, etc.) about her new novel in the foreword. However, this story bears more than a passing resemblance to Charlotte Brontë's immortal classic. Poignantly narrated, Livesey's tale opens in late-1950s Scotland where, after her uncle's death, harsh new conditions are imposed on 10-year-old Gemma by her cartoonishly callous aunt and cousins. Sent to horrible Claypoole School as a working pupil, Gemma becomes a lonely, bullied drudge until befriended by asthmatic Miriam, whose sad death gives Gemma the power to endure. After the school's closure she moves, now almost 18, to a remote Orkney island, to work as an au pair caring for Nell, the unruly niece of taciturn banker Hugh Sinclair. Love and a surprise proposal follow, and it's here the story parts company most noticeably and least convincingly from Jane Eyre. Shameful secrets, foreign travel and a quest fulfilled follow, before Gemma finally establishes a future on her own terms. Nicely, touchingly done, and the familiar story exerts its reliably magnetic pull, but fans of Jane Eyre will wonder why.
Gemma is an interesting, sympathetic character, strong yet vulnerable. Her one failing is what I stated above: whenever she seems to find happiness, she runs from it. The novel is very well-written. The style was strong yet vulnerable, just like Gemma. I wanted to keep going to see if she would find happiness and not run from it!
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