Predatory Natures

The quotation from Alan Garner’s The Owl Service on the frontispiece of this book is wholly apposite: Predatory Natures is Blodeuwedd meets contemporary love story-with added fillip.

Lara has had a traumatic year subjected to a relationship dominated by coercive control which isolated her from friends and school and, as a result, has to resit some of her failed exams in order to get into university. Keen to escape from the emotional wreckage she’s endured and needing to earn money she obtains a job aboard The Banebury, a luxurious train travelling from England to Tallinn, carrying extremely wealthy passengers. When she discovers that she will be working alongside Rhys, formerly a close friend, her feelings are in turmoil. Can she repair the damage to their friendship and subdue the stronger feelings she has always had for him?

As the train journey progresses this becomes the least of her worries. Goldsmith is adept at creating an entirely believable environment and the reader is soon immersed in the sumptuous luxury of the train. The passengers, too, come to life, despite some stereotyping. Train staff become familiar, too, and it is thus all the more shocking when two unconventional siblings, along with three extra carriages, join the train during the night. The carriages are explained as a research facility for Gwen, who is an expert cultivator of plants, allegedly to help provide crops for drought conditions and for medical purposes.

The true story is very different and when plants start to invade the train and kill both passengers and staff, Rhys and Lara work together to solve the mystery. The story is credibly suspenseful- twisting and turning in unexpected ways, holding the reader’s interest throughout. Blodeuwedd is at the heart of the matter but greed and a lust for power also play dominant roles, echoing the essence of Lara’s relationship with Beckett. It is Lara’s empathy with the figure of Blodeuwedd, trapped inside one of the extra carriages, which breaks the spell and ends the killing spree: the goddess was trapped by a vindictive and controlling man, just as she was and now, like Lara, she has been released.

The book is by no means diminished by the happy ending for Rhys and Lara-it feels authentic, rather than a tying-up of loose ends. However, the one aspect of the narrative which jars is the introduction of American idioms and spelling, detracting rather from the environment in which the story is set.