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Ruby's Spoon
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
`I'm going to stick my neck out and predict prize-winning nominations for this debut novelist's astonishing first book'
--Sunday Herald
'delicate and wonderfully original...vividly drawn characters that will keep you spellbound right to the very last page' --Mslexia
'In turns modern and folkloric, this is an ambitious and unique debut' --Hisorical Novels Review
"A charismatic coming-of-age tale glimmering with dark magic, lost families and closely guarded secrets"
-- Marie Claire
'I found particular delight in her prose which is delicate and wonderfully original' --Mslexia, February 2010
'... pure delight to revel in... rich and rare... Anna Lawrence Pietroni has a remarkable talent.'
-- The Lady
"Where Pietroni has succeeded best is in making timeworn fairy-tale tropes thrive in a mundane setting." --The Independent
'Spirited'
--Guardian
"full of chewy descriptions"
--Times Literary Supplement
a wonderful coming-of-age tale...she twists gritty realism with folklore themes in a truly mesmerising prose'
--Good Book guide
--Sunday Herald
'delicate and wonderfully original...vividly drawn characters that will keep you spellbound right to the very last page' --Mslexia
'In turns modern and folkloric, this is an ambitious and unique debut' --Hisorical Novels Review
"A charismatic coming-of-age tale glimmering with dark magic, lost families and closely guarded secrets"
-- Marie Claire
'I found particular delight in her prose which is delicate and wonderfully original' --Mslexia, February 2010
'... pure delight to revel in... rich and rare... Anna Lawrence Pietroni has a remarkable talent.'
-- The Lady
"Where Pietroni has succeeded best is in making timeworn fairy-tale tropes thrive in a mundane setting." --The Independent
'Spirited'
--Guardian
"full of chewy descriptions"
--Times Literary Supplement
a wonderful coming-of-age tale...she twists gritty realism with folklore themes in a truly mesmerising prose'
--Good Book guide
Book Description
Ruby's Spoon is a bold and bewitching debut set in the industrial Black Country of the 1930s. Anna Lawrence Pietroni's fiercely charismatic heroine blazes the arrival of a mesmerising new literary talent.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
In this, the author's debut novel, mermaids, myths and mystery are the order of the day. It is set in 1930s England, in the small town of Cradle Cross in the heart of the Black Country in the Midlands. Surrounded by canals, brimming over with superstition, Cradle Cross is like a prison for our narrator, 12 year old Ruby Abel Taylor. Ruby dreams of new horizons but her crabbed grandmother Annie has forbidden her to go near water after losing her husband and child to the sea so she's fated to lead a stifled, claustraphobic existence until one day Isa Fly comes to town. Isa, half-blind with a mane of white hair, becomes a scapegoat when things start to go wrong in the community - the workers at the local button factory are laid off and valued items start to go missing. Soon rumours of witchcraft are rife.
The author certainly knows this area like the back of her hand and the inclusion of Black Country dialect enhances the otherworldliness and the seclusion of this community which has lost so many of its menfolk during the war. Indeed the principal characters are all female and all strong-willed and determined, including the idealistic Ruby, the grief-stricken widows of the Ruth and Naomi Society, the worldly-wise Oxbridge graduate Truda Blick, the sinister black clad woman known as Blackbird who harbours a grudge against the charismatic Isa Fly.
On the one hand there is a lot going on in this novel and it took me until about a third in before I settled into it. There is no doubt that this is a well written, atmospheric novel with fairytale elements but I can't help thinking that a bit of judicious pruning and restraint would have created a sharper, homogeneous read. This debut shows a lot of promise and I look forward to reading more from Anna Lawrence Pietroni.
The author certainly knows this area like the back of her hand and the inclusion of Black Country dialect enhances the otherworldliness and the seclusion of this community which has lost so many of its menfolk during the war. Indeed the principal characters are all female and all strong-willed and determined, including the idealistic Ruby, the grief-stricken widows of the Ruth and Naomi Society, the worldly-wise Oxbridge graduate Truda Blick, the sinister black clad woman known as Blackbird who harbours a grudge against the charismatic Isa Fly.
On the one hand there is a lot going on in this novel and it took me until about a third in before I settled into it. There is no doubt that this is a well written, atmospheric novel with fairytale elements but I can't help thinking that a bit of judicious pruning and restraint would have created a sharper, homogeneous read. This debut shows a lot of promise and I look forward to reading more from Anna Lawrence Pietroni.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I have just read the Product Description and to be honest it tells you just about all you need to know with regard to the plot of this rather strange and beguiling novel.
Ruby's Spoon is set in The Black Country between the wars and in part it is a nostalgic look at a time when life was hard but far simpler than it is today. A time when a place like Captin's Fried Fish Shop, where the 14 year old Ruby works, played a central role in the community. She is part of a dysfunctional family, a family with secrets, and has little contact with her father as he has taken to living in his workshop on the canal and she has been told never to cross the water. So every day she takes his dinner and leaves it by the side of the canal and speaks to him from a distance.
The appearance of Isa Fly in the village fuels Ruby's desire to leave Cradle Cross with the smoke, grime and polluted canal and travel to the sea with its fresh air and open spaces. Most of the people in the town are suspicious of the new comer but Ruby is fascinated by her and volunteers to aid Isa on her quest to find Lily.
The novel is peopled by a host of great characters, some like Ruby and Captin I really liked, some, her father for example, I wanted to slap whereas Isa, Miss Blick and 'The Blackbird' who works on the dredger were characters I kept changing my mind about. However I was fascinated by all of them as they did come alive for me and I cared what happened to them. Much of the dialogue is written in dialect, which took me a few pages to adjust to, but in addition to adding colour to the prose it also helps the reader differentiate between the characters background, education and place in life without being told.
A fishing motif threads its way through the book, for example, Isa with her fishing rod and box of fly's is just as adept at hooking people in. In fact there is much about Ruby's Spoon that makes it perfect for book group discussions.
This is one of those books that I want to recommend to everyone I meet, it is strange, magical, original and most importantly it makes me smile.
I read this novel around the same time that I read Dona Nicanora's Hat Shop and I think that anyone who enjoys one will enjoy the other. I found both of them hard to put down.
Ruby's Spoon is set in The Black Country between the wars and in part it is a nostalgic look at a time when life was hard but far simpler than it is today. A time when a place like Captin's Fried Fish Shop, where the 14 year old Ruby works, played a central role in the community. She is part of a dysfunctional family, a family with secrets, and has little contact with her father as he has taken to living in his workshop on the canal and she has been told never to cross the water. So every day she takes his dinner and leaves it by the side of the canal and speaks to him from a distance.
The appearance of Isa Fly in the village fuels Ruby's desire to leave Cradle Cross with the smoke, grime and polluted canal and travel to the sea with its fresh air and open spaces. Most of the people in the town are suspicious of the new comer but Ruby is fascinated by her and volunteers to aid Isa on her quest to find Lily.
The novel is peopled by a host of great characters, some like Ruby and Captin I really liked, some, her father for example, I wanted to slap whereas Isa, Miss Blick and 'The Blackbird' who works on the dredger were characters I kept changing my mind about. However I was fascinated by all of them as they did come alive for me and I cared what happened to them. Much of the dialogue is written in dialect, which took me a few pages to adjust to, but in addition to adding colour to the prose it also helps the reader differentiate between the characters background, education and place in life without being told.
A fishing motif threads its way through the book, for example, Isa with her fishing rod and box of fly's is just as adept at hooking people in. In fact there is much about Ruby's Spoon that makes it perfect for book group discussions.
This is one of those books that I want to recommend to everyone I meet, it is strange, magical, original and most importantly it makes me smile.
I read this novel around the same time that I read Dona Nicanora's Hat Shop and I think that anyone who enjoys one will enjoy the other. I found both of them hard to put down.
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
Ruby's Spoon is an unusual book. Set in the Black Country, before WW2 it is full of social history. But it is also a mystery which kept me guessing right to the end
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
the superstitions of loss
I bought this from Poundshop because I needed something to read on the bus. I was drawn by the beautiful hardback edition. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Lucinda Stern
An Evening with Anna
I needed to read this book quickly ahead of a visit to our library by the author, to which I had invited members of local reading groups. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Ms. G. M. Peters
A dark mystery in an oppressive industrial setting
Ruby's Spoon oozes with the dark oppressive atmosphere of a failing industrial town between the wars. Read more
Published 11 months ago by D of Sutton Coldfield
This one, not for me!
I think I may be putting my head above the parapet with my review considering the very favourable reviews Ruby's spoon has had to date. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Alice in Wonderland
Fans of Joanne Harris will enjoy this
I found Ruby's spoon compelling from start to finish. After getting used to the Black Country dialect, I was intrigued by the constant twists and turns of the plot, and the... Read more
Published on 25 April 2010 by Mrs. Sarah Howell
Prepare to shiver!
Ruby's Spoon is an atmospheric mystery with unexpected twists and turns all through. You can imagine the smells of early 20th century industry, the ways of the chip shop and the... Read more
Published on 21 April 2010 by Mrs. M. E. Purkiss
Ruby's Spoon
An absolutely superb book that I thoroughly enjoyed. Having been brought up in the area in which the book is based gave it an added extra. Read more
Published on 18 Mar 2010 by A. I. Tierney
A distinct imaginative world
'This is the tale of Ruby Abel Tailor who could not cross the water but dreamed on an easy plenty by the sea'. Read more
Published on 11 Mar 2010 by Mike S
Ruby's Spoon
This is a well researched and unusual book with wonderful characters. A very good read. There were some well thought out touches which added an extra dimension to this book and... Read more
Published on 10 Mar 2010 by Blackcountry Girl
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