Ruby's Spoon - Softcover

Lawrence Pietroni, Anna

3.14

217 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 070118437X ISBN 13: 9780701184377

Publisher: Chatto & Windus, 2010

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This is the tale of three women - one witch, one mermaid and one missing - and how Ruby was caught up in between. When Isa Fly appears in the doorway of Captin Len's Fried Fish Shop, fourteen-year-old Ruby is entranced. Isa comes from the coast where the air is fresh; unlike Ruby's home in Cradle Cross, its factory furnaces pumping and filthy slits of canal water sending up a stink. Isa is on the hunt for a missing person, and Ruby is eager to help, convinced she will be repaid with an adventure at sea. But some of the townsfolk are instantly suspicious of the outsider with her shock of white hair and glinting mirrored skirts. They have their own lost relatives to mourn, and don't take kindly to Isa's ability to leave their Ruby spellbound. Undaunted, Ruby introduces Isa to Truda Blick, the bluestocking graduate who has just inherited the town's button factory, where carcasses are rendered down and bones turned into buttons. Blickses is on the verge of collapse, and Truda has her work cut out. Ruby is desperate to help Truda and Isa but her alliance with the women is pushing the town to the brink of riot. All the trouble began, it seems, when Isa Fly arrived in Cradle Cross...Only Ruby knows enough to save them all. But first she must save herself.

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Product Description:

I've been reading a lot of bare bones writing lately, which I've enjoyed, but sometimes you start to miss colourful adjectives and complex sentences. This is where Ruby's Spoon by Anna Lawrence Pietroni came in. Ruby's Spoon takes place in the fictional Black Country town of Cradle Cross, in the 1930s. It doesn't technically involve magic, but it has some mysterious folktale elements running through it that appealed to me (witches and mermaids!). It's hard to describe Pietroni's writing as anything other than musical - her words follow a clear, resounding rhythm and each sentence could be its own little poem (which is why I took a while to get into the groove of reading her). It makes sense that the village kids chant schoolyard songs to taunt Ruby, the book's lonely teenage heroine. And I was pleasantly surprised to see that Pietroni was able to so honestly describe her own writing for me instead of jumping on the self-deprecating bandwagon. Oh, and she wrote part of Ruby's Spoon in a garden shed (see, writers? All you need is a shed!).

Review:

"A spirited and adventurous writer, Pietroni loves words and takes joy in story-telling... As well as dark secrets, concealed hatreds, ambiguous identities and tormented relationships, it is about a child in need of parents" (Independent)

"A charismatic coming-of-age tale glimmering with dark magic, lost families and closely guarded secrets" (Marie Claire)

"One of the best first novels I have ever read" (Susan Hill)

"[A] grown up fairy tale... replete with folklore, revelling in character and dialect" (Guardian)

"This enthralling, suspenseful debut novel...has the feel of a grim fairy tale. Of the many riches it offers, is the winning lead character...who will capture readers' hearts" (Booklist (starred review))

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