Air and Angels, book review. (Susan Hill)

FIVE GREAT BIG MASSIVE GOLD STARS.

There, I've said it, there's my review.

Like most bibliophiles, I came across Susan Hill when I read, The Woman in Black, (which is in my top ten books of all time by the way), and then, I read, Mrs De Winter, Susan Hill's sequence to Daphne Du Maurier's, Rebecca, and it was good, not as good as, The Woman in Black, but good all the same. Then, out of nowhere - well, out of a bag of books my brother no longer wanted - I found this, Air and Angels.

WOW!

This book is about as close to poetry as any novel I have read. The words just run across the page like smooth flowing water, drip from the tongue like silk; simply put, I have never read a book so exquisite.

In Cambridge, (famous University city), we have the collage Dean, Thomas Cavendish, his sister, Georgiana, her friend, Florence, (who quite fancies the Dean), and in India, we have Kitty, Florence's cousin, her parents, Lewis and Eleanor, their friends, one of which travels back to England with Kitty in tow, and many more besides.

Simple descriptions provide the reader with all he or she needs to feel, hot in India, cold in Cambridge and isolated in the broads of Norfolk.

I felt so passionate about the brilliance of this book, that I started annotating certain passages, (for people who know me, this will be hard to grasp, for I treat the cheapest and least loved of my books with the greatest respect), and before long I was underlining on almost every page.

I've never done this on my blog before, but because I love this book so much, I'm going to share some of it with you:

In corners and cracks, spiders' webs, and the nests of tiny mice. And when she touched a curtain to draw it back, the faded fabric fell apart, soft as a cloud of powder in her hand.

And no one sees her, no one is aware, except perhaps one man, returning late, glimpses a figure, running before the wind, or a nursemaid, up to a restless child, and, glancing between the curtains, down into the night streets.

But the night drew on, and death lingered outside the door . . .

He felt unreal, bodiless. He felt wonder. Astonishment. Pure, vibrant joy. No dread, no fear, no bewilderment now, but acceptance, as of some miraculous gift. And, looking across at Kitty, love.

So there you have it; a little taster for you. I hope you like what I’ve chosen and that it inspires you to get a copy; you will not be disappointed.