The Raging Quiet [Paperback]

The tale starts with Marnie Isherwood, who has just married Isake Isherwood (who is old enough to be her dad) to save her family, and escpae from the lies the boys at her old home used to tell about her. But married life isn't the bliss she had once dreamed of, and Marnie finds it so unbearable she prays to God to do something to make it stop, and when her husband dies in an accident the next day, she is distraught and runs to teh priest, saying she killed him. Of course, the preist makes her see sense and how it wasn't an accident, but the towns people, hearing her confess, will not forget about her husbands death and belive she was the one to cause it and not to be trusted. So Marnie becomes an outcast, met with hatred wherever she goes, but for the kind priest and the local madboy, Raven, whom she forms a specail bond with. It is only after a noisy night that would have awoken the heavens that Marnie finally realises why it is that Raven seems to mad to understand human communication and thought to be possessed by devils, because he can't hear!

The rest of the story tells of Marnie's attempt to communicate with Raven, their rudemantory sign launguage, and the townfolks widening distrust, now weaved with ideas that she is a witch, and in a time when witches were still killed if found guilty, Marnie falls into alot of danger.

It is not only teh story though that makes this such an unforgettable book. The author's writing style is perfect, giving a fluent, entertaining read, with so much descrcription and beauty, you could truly feel Marnie's pain, frustration, anger, worry, sadness and love, and fall in love with each of teh different charactors, whether it be the priest, Raven, or Marnie herself. The gpood charactors are so likeable, the evil ones easy to hate, and the story itself is faultless, and gives a depth rarely available in teenge books today.

The only things I was dissapointed about where not finding out what had happened to Marnie's dad to make him paralysed in the first place, and never knowing what Father Brannin had written to Marnie and Raven in teh book he gave them.

Beautiful story, must read.

They story of Marnie and Raven, and their increasing closeness is believable; at times I found myself smiling and going "aww..." at their interactions, but this book isn't a Mills & Boon style romance. Infact, I'd say the romance of the book is second to the main theme of both their otricising from the village they live in.

Also the themes of bigotry, isolation for seeming different and small narrow minded thinking still are, sadly, relevent for today. A wonderful book, which I've already thrust into a friend's hand to read. You should to.