Trying to cling to the past, to the way things were, pretending nothing has changed. Everything changes and breaks and stops fitting – and we know that, even with our stopped clock. The world is breaking, and changing, and dancing. Always on the move. That’s how it is. That’s how it has to be. [p. 409]
Reread for book club: first read in 2014. I remembered very little except Triss' true nature and the scissors. That said, I find that my Kindle highlights match quotes from that earlier review... And I'm not sure I have much more to say about it, other than that this time around I really sympathised with Violet, who carries the winter with her, and who is definitely kicking against society's decrees about what nice girls do.
The parents' behaviour towards their remaining children -- who they only want to keep safe -- is borderline abusive. Pen is the scapegoat, Triss is the delicate flower, and nobody must ever mention Sebastian or talk about any of the problems within the family. (Sebastian's fate is cruel: I wish we'd had more of his letters. )
Hardinge's prose is deliciously visual, vivid and arresting: a cry 'sounded the way a scar looks'; 'so dark that she seemed to hear the hiss as it sucked light out of the air'; and, when they're pursued, the pursuers are 'cold on their heels'.
We spent quite a while wondering where Ellchester was. I thought it had a northern feel but the consensus, eventually, was that it might be Bristol-adjacent.
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