Stella could see it now, the snow changing to white rose petals and drifting down onto the water. The oaks flushed a darker green with the heavy leaf of midsummer, not solstice but beyond, lammas-tide when the tides of the land grow slower and the days begin to darken and things begin to ripen and die. [loc. 3870]
Bee Fallow has been the guardian of the family house, Mooncote, since her mother Alys went missing a year ago. Mooncote is a rambling old house, with the ghost of an Elizabethan privateer in the orchard, and star spirits, extravagantly dressed and bearing flowers or herbs, appearing randomly. Bee's three sisters -- Stella the DJ, Serena the fashion designer and Luna the uprooted traveller -- are unfazed by these quiet magics, and are busy with their own lives. But the sisters find themselves drawn back to Mooncote as autumn fades and Lerninsky's Comet approaches. Can they discover their mother's fate? Who, or what, are the slithery Stare siblings who suddenly seem to be worming their way into the Fallow sisters' lives? And what will the comet bring?
That is a paltry summary of a rich and very English novel which I vastly enjoyed. The Fallow sisters, with their distinct personalities and passions, and their various reactions to the weird and unsettling happenings around them, are so vividly depicted that they felt like people I knew. There's a strong theme of place, of persistence and belonging, in the novel: the Fallows have lived at Mooncote for centuries, and there are others who have been in the area for much longer. The star spirits personify the Behenian stars, which was an educational insight into medieval astrology and astronomy: Alys' father, now dead, was an astronomer, and his influence is clear throughout the novel. The ghost in the orchard, Ned Dark, sailed with Drake -- and may do so again, for time is a mutable construct in Comet Weather. And, for someone trapped in an urban environment during lockdown, the evocative descriptions of woodland, coast and hills were tantalising as well as satisfying.
I was reminded of several favourite fantasies: Rob Holdstock's Mythago Wood and especially Lavondyss; various works by Diana Wynne Jones and Alan Garner; and, oddly, Gwyneth Jones' Bold as Love, perhaps because of the vaguely counter-cultural ambience. But Comet Weather is very much its own book: a story about the sometimes difficult relationships between sisters, about the perils of hunting thieves and of seeking help from old cold entities, about women making their own way in the world and reshaping that world.
There are a lot of intriguing loose ends here (not least American cousin Nell's purpose in the story), so I was overjoyed to read that a second volume, Blackthorn Winter, is due. But when, when ...?
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