Midwinterblood

Midwinterblood is a deeply moving and highly imaginative account of enduring love and rebirth over the centuries, starting in the late 21st century and moving back over different periods to a ‘time unknown’. Across these aeons, with slight variations of name, Merle and Eric appear as lovers, mother and son, twin siblings and other relationships in seven distinct stories set on an island in the far north – Blessed Island. There ‘the leaves and the grass (are) bright… the people smiling and beautiful’. If he had been God, thinks a British visitor, Blessed is the island he would have designed. But there is darkness beneath the beauty. We learn that ‘blessed’ is derived from the old word for ‘blood sacrifice’, and an outsider finds a massive painting of just such a scene in a sinister, church-like building in a remote part of the island – a scene set on the island itself.

The stories that make up the novel develop these themes, often obliquely, in styles that reflect the periods in which they are set. The first story, in 2073, has echoes of The Wicker Man as an outside investigator faces the pagan secrets of an enclosed community. 1848 provides the setting for a Romantic story of unrequited love and death, while a Viking tale adopts the style of a Norse saga. Sometimes, the episodes are inter-connected – an archaeologist in 2011 uncovers the 10th century grave of characters we meet later as we progress backwards towards the roots of the island’s mystery. The cycle of nature and the seasons is a constant theme, and the book’s chapters appear under ‘the old names for the moons’ which ‘come from life on the land’: the flower moon, the hay moon, the grain moon, and so on. It’s a small step from the ‘mysterious and powerful’ moon to ritual and magic – hares used as totems; the narcotic tea brewed on the island from the ‘Dracula Orchid’ which is ‘more like an animal than a flower’.

Although there are ritual sacrifices, some drinking of blood and even a brief appearance by a vampire, this is far from being a clichéd horror-story. Much of the book consists of lyrical descriptions of human emotions, presented with great tenderness in a variety of styles. Children feature as characters, but several of the protagonists are middle-aged and the passion felt by Merle and Eric is mature and adult – and highly spiritual. The author’s virtuosity maintains tension and the reader’s interest without resorting to sensationalism, but it is unfortunate that the book’s cover includes a significant ‘spoiler’. Overall, this is a profound and engrossing work, which takes us from modern worldwide communications and relationships to atavistic tribalism. It should appeal to any discriminating reader aged 14 and over.