I must firstly apologise for the amount of time it has taken me to provide a review of this book, my health was rather bad for quite some time, something that had me in hospital on numerous occasions and simply didnt leave me with the time I once had to do what I love most.

Unfortunately that does mean I have missed the archive date for many of these books, so It would feel unjust throwing any review together without being able to pay attention to each novel properly.

However, I am now back to reading as before and look forward to sharing my honest reviews as always going forward. I thank you f0r the patience and understanding throughout x

I thought this quite an odd and dull narrative. I struggled to connect with it and thought the story rather prolonged and complicated.

Marianne’s research dominates the narrative, switching between the 1920s and present day. However, I couldn’t really understand her processes as she hunts butterflies and examines them. There is a fair bit of jargon in the story and I thought this made the narrative denser than it needed to be. Her new assistant, Tartelin, is expected to help with this research but, Tartelin starts to find out that there is more to Marianne’s past than her employer lets on.

I found the older timeframe to be even slower than present day. Readers following Marianne on the island as a young teenager, watching her father work the island and connect with the landscape. Marianne’s character is not particularly pleasant in the present, let alone the past, and I don’t think this helped with my understanding of the plot development. There is a lot of work with butterflies and moths but I think I felt more freaked out than admiration for the intricacies of the work involved.

In the present, Tartelin’s move to this remote island is an act to help her grief for her recently passed mother. I liked how parallels are established between Marianne and Tartelin, showing that perhaps this employment was destined to occur. As more is revealed about what happened on the island, I thought the story became more interesting but, I think this was still swamped with details I struggled to understand.

Although I vaguely understood most of the story, I thought it was more abstract and mysterious than it needed to be. I liked the implied references to magic but felt the writer could have been more transparent with where the story was headed. As it was, I felt more alienated as a reader and was keen to reach the end.

With thanks to HQ Digital and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience

thanks for letting me read this book, sorry that it's taken me so long to review it.
A great book, well written and well told, I was gripped to this book from start to finish and read it in 3 sittings.

This is a book I truly wish I could read for the first time all over again. I’m in complete awe and fangirl mode at how utterly fantastic this book is.

Unfortunately I could not gel with this story. I felt the pace was very slow and I didn't feel compelled to continue reading it at 30%. There wasn't enough oomph to the story and I found my attention waivered on more than one occasion. For this reason I decided to DNF and move on.

I have seen some great reviews for this one so it is most likely a case of it's me rather than the book. Who knows, maybe I will give it another try at some point.

Unfortunately this novel kept disappointing me. The setting was too much hard trying, too much show-don't-tell, forced world- builing. The language felt unnatural und didn't flow at all. I had to read lots of unnecessary word. Is it YA?
Overall to me i felt a bit like a blueprint from a writing exercise, one of those sessions where you just have to get the words out and just delete it all later.

Both beautiful and beautifully strange - a mosiac piece of different genres and plot elements. Well-written and beguiling.

I absolutely adored this thoughtful, beautiful story of a young woman, Tartelin, going to live on the island of Dohhalund as an assistant to Marianne Stourbridge, and elderly lepidopterist.

Marianne is a difficult woman to get to know: she’s short tempered, doesn’t really want to share any of herself with Tartelin - and she has a lot of secrets to share.

Tartelin is mourning the death of her mother. She’s a young woman, alone in the world. She probably chooses the job with Marianne because it’s somewhere so different from her childhood home and her mother’s art studio.

I do think that Dohhalund goes some way to helping Tartelin begin the grieving process. It sounds like a stark, beautiful place. At one end is a military base, and at the other is Marianne’s house and land. Her family had lived on Dohhalund for generations, until the military had ordered them to leave. After her return, it’s evident that many of the buildings have started to fall into the sea. This reflects to some extent, Marianne’s physical and Tartelin’s mental states. Both women are deeply affected by what has happened in their pasts.

This is such an emotive, beautifully descriptive book. It’s a slow burner, a story of friendship and love, where secrets are revealed, people are reunited and new friendships forged.

This gorgeous book had me in tears by the end, with characters I really cared for. As the Pearl Women in the book often said: “The sea is made up of unspeakable sadness”, and whilst this novel was sad, there was also hope.
Highly recommended (as is Polly Crosby’s first book “The Illustrated Child”).

I reviewed this book for a blog tour.

http://ramblingmads.com/2022/01/05/blog-tour-the-unravelling-polly-crosby/

It is fascinating how landscapes and where we grow up as children can stay with us as we age. How these memories of home often draw us back whether with positive association or more traumatic ones. The idea of landscape imprinting and drawing individuals homeward seems to be a central preoccupation with Polly Crosby’s novel, ‘The Unravelling.’ One of the central protagonists, Marianne Stourbridge is drawn back to her ancestral home after having been banished for sixty-three years.
This home is the fictionalised island of Dohhalund a ‘tiny island off the East Anglian Coast.’ Marianne’s home ‘Dogger Bank House’ is where she now, in old age, is confined. She employs the help of Tartelin, another central protagonist, a young woman trying to escape the world after losing her mother. A facial disfigurement means she is often faced with prejudice and initially she worries the same fate awaits her when meeting Marianne. She states, ‘perhaps I am naïve and intolerance breeds in isolated outcrops like this.’ She is there to help Marianne, a lepidopterist, to study the butterfly population. Tartelin is instructed to capture and kill the butterflies and bring them back to Marianne for study.
It becomes quickly apparent as Tartelin traverses the island that this is not an idyllic setting or a place of escape for either protagonist. The very land itself is traumatised and hurt, ‘covered in pebble and concrete, sewn together by weeds that twisted like rough stitches across its surface.’ The narrative switches between the modern perspective of Tartelin trying to work out the motivations and nuances of Marianne, who conjures up similarities with the Dickensian Miss Havisham another character unable to leave the confines of her home and unable to come to terms with the past. It then switches to Marianne as a girl in the 1950s through which we witness the reasons why her family had to eventually leave the island. These sections were poignantly done, with the child narrator not fully grasping why another girl called Nan comes to live with them at her father’s request or fully understanding the family’s uneasy relationship with the local herring girls employed by the family and who they capitalise from.
The modern-day island, through Tartelin’s perspective, is less populated in the present day. It has an eerie quality where characters appear and then disappear again, almost like a dream. Nothing stays firm or concrete. Strange animals add an element of the uncanny and like Tartelin we as readers feel confused, like we have lost our way, become unravelled. There is a sadness to the book and a fragility which is echoed in the landscape, ‘the sea is made up of unspeakable sadness.’ Each character harbours a regret they each in turn must face or else confront their own unravelling. It was interesting watching the female relationships and I felt that this was central to the light and hope the book offered. Coming to terms with the past and being brave enough to face the future was an idea that resonated strongly with me as a reader. An atmospheric, uncanny text that was eerily compelling.

Told through the dual timelines of Tartelin and Marianne’s stories, The Unravelling is something of a slow burn, and I will admit that it took me a little while to fall under its spell. As much as I enjoyed exploring the island and uncovering its secrets with Tartelin, I would have preferred a greater emphasis on Marianne’s narrative as it was this that really called to me. The more I read though, and the more the two women dealt with their personal grief, the more caught up in the secrets of Dohhalund I became.

As I was reading, I struggled to see how Polly Crosby would bring this book to a close, and was a little worried that the story would simply peter out. However, when the conclusion came, it was just beautiful and absolutely made the book for me.

The Unravelling is a gentle, slow-paced but deeply moving book that was the perfect way to ease myself into my 2022 reading.

Do you ever see a book, with no prior knowledge and feel, somehow that it is for you? Well, The Unravelling by Polly Crosby was that for me.

Tartelin Brown finds herself on an island, hunting butterflies, for the reclusive Marianne Stourbridge. Over one short summer Tartelin discovers that all is not what it seems on the island and that Marianne's life is inextricably linked to it in ways that cannot immediately be understood.

Crosby draws an entirely believable, yet mythical place, with her enchanting and elegant prose. Her narrative is haunting and at times melancholy; the story she weaves is intricate and completely immersive - I was captivated from the very start.

Portrayed in two timelines; Tartelin is the present day, told in the first person - you witness and you feel her gentle discoveries, her new life, its past, its secrets. Marianne's past is told in the third person; automatically and, no doubt intentionally, keeping her at arms length. Yet by the end, thanks to the impeccable skill demonstrated by this consummate writer, I was utterly invested in both of our Women of Pearl Island..

A magical tale that examines the value of life, and the power that we hold over every living thing. A meditation on change; metamorphosis, healing and grief. A discourse in what it means to belong; the frailties overcome that are brought about by inherent difference, either imagined or otherwise. But most of all, a story of family and what that truly means to us all.

On the off chance that I haven't made it clear, I loved this book - I adore Polly Crosby's writing and her storytelling is sublime.

A dual timeline story set on a remote British island. Though atmospheric and emotional, the narrative was too slow and I could not connect to the storytelling.

Emotive, creeping, and mysterious, The Unravelling is a gorgeously-written story set on a lonely island.

On the island, past, present and future are tightly entwined; it's almost as though time has stopped. The island also has a sinister edge, but it's hard to unpick the memories from the truth. One thing's for certain, though - there are secrets at every turn.

Main character Tartelin escapes to the island following a recent bereavement. She's attracted to the remoteness of the island as well as the unusual nature of her new job catching butterflies for elderly lepidopterist Marianne Stourbridge.

However, Tartelin quickly discovers that island life isn't as tranquil as it may seem, and her new employer has plenty of skeletons in the closet. The nomadic island lifestyle throws the unlikely pair together more and more, and as the first hesitant tendrils of friendship begin to emerge, Tartelin learns she must help Marianne uncover the island's biggest secret of all.

The Unravelling is a slow burner of a book, yet once it gets its claws stuck in, you're hooked! It's atmospheric, unexpected, and deliciously moreish. Think Gothic vibes, beautiful island vistas, and deeply complex characters.

Join Tartelin and Marianne and escape to the island for a highly memorable read.

I found the last chapter of this new novel incredibly moving and I was smiling through tears as I closed the book.

Polly Crosby you ruined me for other books, for at least a couple of days!

I genuinely struggled to start anything, because emotionally I was still on this magical island you created. I don’t know whether it was because of my own life experiences and losses, or because of the theme of difference that runs through the novel. There’s also this powerful sense of before and after, that sometimes life events are so seismic they leave a definitive mark. A physical or psychological before and after, that changes or mutates who we are. Writing across two time frames, the author introduces us to Dohallund, an island that sits somewhere between the east coast and the European mainland. This was a tract of land that joined the U.K. and Europe, but was submerged a long time ago, possibly by a tsunami, leaving a small island called Dogger Bank. The author takes this long submerged island and reimagines it across two separate timelines. In one we meet Tartelin who has answered a job advert to help Marianne Stourbridge with her research. Marianne is a rather formidable old lady - the best type of older lady to be - who is researching butterflies and needs an assistant to collect specimens around the island. She is mainly confined to the house, because she is a wheelchair user, but is so industrious that there are cabinets full of her specimens. Tartelin doesn’t fully understand what she is looking for, only that there is some sort of difference she’s observed. Tartelin understands difference, because she has a birthmark on one cheek that makes her self conscious when she wanders around meeting people. The amount of people are a surprise, because Marianne told her the island was largely uninhabited. Just after WW2 the island’s military base stayed operational and they commandeered the island. All inhabitants had to leave, and only started to return more recently, along with curious tourists.

Marianne’s memories of the island take us back to the years between WW1 and WW2, when she lived in the same family home with her mother and father. The Stourbridges were the guardians of the island, through her mother’s side of the family. However, it was Marianne’s father who had taken control of the island and it’s resources. Her family were rich, relying on herrings and pearls to keep their fortunes buoyant and providing work for the islanders. Under Mr Stourbridge’s control the businesses were losing money so he needed to diversify, and settled on silk-making as a way out of difficulty. Mulberry trees and silkworms arrived on the island and Marianne was researching to find out how to produce the best silk thread, but didn’t know that her father had hired a silk girl to come and start things. Nan came to live in their house and although the girls built a friendship, Marianne missed time with her father which was now being sacrificed for Nan and the silk worms. I had so many thoughts and questions in my head by this point. How had the family’s fortunes changed so drastically? How sad it must be for Marianne’s mother to watch her family businesses taken from her and mismanaged simply because she was a woman. Who was Nan and why was she dominating so much of Mr Stourbridge’s time? The author drip feeds these memories into the present day story, answering some questions but leaving others so I was always waiting for the next memory to know what happened next. There was a growing tension in the house that led me to believe an explosion was coming, something that would change Marianne”s life forever. Each section shed light on something in the present day, but I wanted the whole story of why Marianne was so alone in her old age, when did her family leave the island but most of all why was the island requisitioned?

I loved the sense of the uncanny that the author created; a feeling that life on the island was like real life, but not quite. There are strange, unfinished or half destroyed buildings, eroded cliffs and houses that have been literally swallowed up by the sea. Tartelin’s island has a feel of dilapidated grandeur in it’s buildings. They must have once been extravagant and beautiful, like the pavilion where Tartelin meets the peacock, but slowly being broken down and reclaimed by the sea. This is a strong theme throughout the novel, the idea that nature will always find a way, like a flower growing from a tiny crack in the pavement. I found Marianne a fascinating character with the manner of someone very intelligent and far too busy to be bothered with trifles. Her exterior as this grumpy old woman probably brushes most people off, but Tartelin is more persistent than most. Watching these two women slowly learning to trust and understand one another was a joy. Marianne’s story, as it is revealed, moved me beyond words. Even though there’s a fantastical, dream-like quality to her recollections the emotions ring true and are devastating to witness. However, I also felt an incredible sense of joy over the ending too. This novel is evocative and bittersweet, full of rich detail and interesting women. I have no hesitation in recommending all of Polly Crosby’s writing, but this is extraordinary and will stay with me forever.

"There's something about this place that I can't quite get a grip on. It's as if it's trying to tell me something, but I don't know the language."

The Unravelling is a story of mystery, grief and metamorphosis set on an isolated island where decades-old secrets are rooted in its very fabric. Told in dual timelines, this mesmerising story is woven together by gossamer threads that slowly unfurl to reveal the mystery of this peculiar island, its mysterious matriarch and a strange summer many years earlier.

“That night my sleep is velvet blue, dark and dreamless, and when I wake in the morning I forget where I am."

Polly Crosby is a masterful storyteller who is skilled at crafting intricate and multilayered stories that have so much hidden beneath the surface. This one has trauma, grief and pain woven into every facet of the narrative, while beautiful, immersive and hypnotic prose pulls you into the world the author has created so completely that everything else falls away. With evocative imagery she crafts an original landscape that feels vividly real, transporting you to this dark, cryptic place and holding you captive as you try to decipher what is real and what is imagination. With this book Ms. Crosby has confirmed she is no one-hit wonder and secured her place on my list of favourite and auto-buy authors.

"She is right. This place is tangled up with secrets. Not just the island itself: I sense Miss Stourbridge holds secrets here too."

The story centres around two women: Marianne and Tartelin. Marianne is a cantankerous, secretive old woman who has recently returned to the island owned by her family to study mutation of the local butterflies. She has hired Tartelin, a young woman trying to come to terms with the recent death of her mother, as her assistant. From the start Tartelin is intrigued by Marianne and eager to know more about her. But Marianne is a closed book, unwilling to form any kind of bond or share stories with her only companion or tell her what it is that she is searching for. They are fascinating and compelling characters, but while I took to Tartelin immediately, it took me a while to warm to Marianne, her spiky shell making it hard to see who she really is underneath. But as the dual timelines gave us a glimpse into who they both were, and as Tartelin managed to persuade her to reveal more of her heartbreaking story, I grew to not only care about her but admire how strong she was after surviving all she’d been through.

"When I first arrived on Duhhalund, I was disappointed that it wasn't the beautiful island I hoped for, but now I can see its strange beauty everywhere I look. It is a wild beauty, a secret beauty that twists and burrows inside me until sometimes I can't separate myself from it. I've never felt like this about a place before. It's an exhilarating feeling. "

Ms. Crosby has created such a strong and spectacular sense of place in this book that Duhholund feels like a character in itself. Claustrophobic and isolated, it is a place shrouded in shadows and secrets. It is a wild place, taken over by nature, without electricity, covered in ruins and inhabited by strange creatures. It is as if the island is alive, its sinister beauty a living, breathing thing you can feel. There is a power to it, something almost mythical, the menace and foreboding lingering over every page as you read.

"The pull of it. Magnetic. As if it wants me to search out its secrets."

Haunting, atmospheric and alluring, The Unravelling is like stepping into a cabinet of curiosities. A magnificent historical mystery that is not to be missed.

Haunting, atmospheric and emotional dual timeline historical mystery, centred on young Tartelin Brown in the present day, interspersed with flashbacks to Marianne Stourbridge's life as she grows up on a mysterious isolated island between the 1920s and 1950s.

Hiding from her grief and loneliness, the idea of being cut off from society appeals to Tartelin as she begins working for elderly but determined Marianne to study her island's butterfly population, although Tartelin doesn't appreciate just how isolated and wild the island is until she arrives.

Marianne is set in her ways and reluctant to open up to Tartelin. Gradually the secrets of the women and the island are revealed as Tartelin helps Marianne to come to terms with the past and Tartelin comes to terms with her future.

A poignant and evocative exploration of grief, self-discovery and family secrets.

Unearthing secrets page after page, opening windows into the past, you get to delve deep into the protagonists's feelings, their evolving relationship, and it makes you question your own relationship to nature, to life and death. 

Polly Crosby’s writing is absolute perfection. The story unfolds in such a poetic way, the words so delicate, touching you with the fragility of butterfly wings, something about it reaching out deep into your emotions, into the extraordinary depth of the characters, allowing you to feel the grief, the briefness of life, the atmospheric island and the magic of it all. Stunning.

There is something immensely sad about this book, but it is also full of hope. As much as things mutate, some things remain the same, like anchors. Once the island takes a hold of you, it will never let you go.

I was disappointed by the novel, I felt the characters were unformed and under developed and really not very likeable. The narrative runs over two timelines - today and the past, moving forward from the late 20's to the mid 50's. Both take place on the island but there is a period in between when the island was inhabited only by the military.
There is obviously some mystery to the past that has made Marianne into the somewhat crotchety, butterfly obsessed woman she is today. The telling of this mystery is,in my opinion laboured and really does not amount to much. Tartelin's activity on the island of today is similarly bare boned. All the action takes place over the last 10% of the book and is not enough to make me feel enamoured by the book which was a real struggle to get through.

I would not recommend this book or author and cannot really see myself picking up anything else she might write