The Owl Service

I'll do my best to review this book, but my thoughts about the book are a bit of a muddle; I wasn't terribly clear about what was going on in this story, in the past and in the present day.

Alison and her family come to stay in an old valley in Wales. There are lots of characters—Alison's mom, her step-father, her step-brother Roger, the caretaker of the property Huw, the cook Nancy, and Nancy's son Gwyn. Alison finds a set of dishes in the attic, and she finds herself, oddly, drawing owls. Nancy is very upset about the finding of the dishes, and that, too, seems odd.

Gwyn, Roger, and Alison learn about the old Welsh legend of Blodeuwedd, a woman created by a wizard out of flowers, who cheats on her husband for another man and is turned into an owl.

It's a rich story, full of teenage confusion and tension that is amplified with the layers of legend lived out in the valley, with the original story of Blodeuwedd, continued through Nancy's story, and brought into life in present day through Alison and Roger and Gwyn. There is class resentment between the affluent English and poor Welsh people, and that forms another strong theme in the book.

SPOILER ALERT

The ending was magnificent.