When her husband the priest dies, Morag loses more than her life partner. With him goes her home and her place in the community. In addition to these misfortunes, in a society that sets great store by lineage, she is challenged about the mysterious identity of her mother, and it is this that sets her on a quest of discovery that comes, at first, upon a blank, but in time leads her to the circle of the island’s ‘Guardians’, who mediate her discovery of her mother’s identity, and, step by step, her own deeper self-knowing and self-acceptance.
When Aidan, the new priest, undertakes a campaign to upturn the township’s spirituality, which has accommodated older druidical forms alongside the Christ story, both he and the community are set on a collision course. As tension builds the shareg (headman) of the town, must intervene. Finding no way through that conforms to the norms of his world, he must take a radical and unconventional step.
The book explores mental breakdown (Aidan’s) and severe depression (Morag’s, at the mid-point of the story when she finds herself at an impasse). It reflects religious tensions that have existed historically. It celebrates the natural world and the resilience of the human spirit in resisting a coercive authority. In doing so, Morag steps into her full personhood.
Ceredigion author A G Rivett claims to have lived several lives in the course of his one life. Born in London, raised in the Home Counties, he has been a doctor, a priest, and a crofter in the Scottish Highlands. He has lived in rural Northern Nigeria and knows what a simpler life looks like, less dependent on technology. He now lives in West Wales with his wife, Gillian Paschkes-Bell, who works with him as a writing team. There, he grows fruit and vegetables and has sewn a wildflower meadow. He has three daughters and two grandsons.
My thoughts: I felt for Morag, with her husband’s death she loses not only her partner but her home and her standing in the village. With nowhere for her, she leaves to travel back to the place she grew up, hoping to find a home there. She has questions about her mother’s identity that she alone cannot answer and on her quest for a new home, she must also reckon with her past. Meeting the Guardians helps her, and gives her guidance, but the rest is up to her.
At a point in her life where she might have expected stability and the quiet comforts of home and family, she is thrust into a quest for answers about her past and her future.
Meanwhile the new priest must contend with the islanders unique belief system, his own ambitions and try to find a place in this community that is wary of outsiders. Aiden must attempt to master the challenges of his role and rise to the beliefs his church leaders have in him.
Morag and Aidan are a study in contrast, both are starting again at points in their lives they did not expect and must overcome others’ assumptions about them and their place in the world as well as contend with their own personal internal worries.
It’s another interesting study of change and belief, as with Morag’s adopted son in The Seaborne.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
