This book has apparently sold over a million copies. So the author is no longer starving in a garret, and you don't have to feel obliged to spend your money on this book to support him
I haven't yet read the first two volumes in the trilogy of which this is the final part, but that isn't a drawback as this story can really stand alone. Josiah, the son of Will and Susanna, the Quaker couple who feature in the first two books, is an independent and attractive character - he doesn't follow the tenets of his parents' religion slavishly, and we share with him the difficult decisions he makes as the family moves to America to escape persecution. Intertwined with his story is that of a newly arrived slave boy Tokpa, and Ann Turnbull handles this sensitive and potentially difficult subject with delicacy and integrity. I look forward now to reading the two earlier stories
This is only a short book - you can read it in a single sitting - but it's crammed so full of dense and rich imagery that when you put it down you feel you've been reading something much longer. Langrish takes up the story of Matthew Arnold's poem 'The Forsaken Merman' and imagines how the little half-human daughter in the story might try to get her mother back. Just beautiful.
