Sara Winman never disappoints. Beautiful writing, beautiful book covers and beautiful stories about unusual and deep human relationships. This novel differs from Winman’s previous ones, “Still Life” and “Tin Man,” because of its magical realism, but it’s similar in the way it travels back and forth in time and place for each character, which requires careful reading and sometimes rereading. 

The story is set in the late 1940s in a remote Cornish hamlet on a tidal creek. When it opens, Francis Drake, a war torn British soldier, washes up on the shore and 89-year-old Marvelous Ways nurtures him back to health. Their ensuing friendship is the primary relationship of the story, but through their conversations we learn of the other characters such as the three loves of Marvelous’s life, the dying soldier Francis interacts with, the dying soldier’s father, and the young woman Francis loved and lost.

The story feels like poetry and like it has the movement of the water running through it. The descriptions of the natural landscape are imagistic and realistic and magical, intertwining the moon and stars with the hooting owls and swaying eelgrass and the tidal swings where Marvelous swims naked every day and claiming decendence from a mermaid. 

But it’s the conversations about life and big ideas that draw us into this world: the wisdom she imparts, the hardship and loss most everyone faces, the will to move forward, and the beauty in taking care of others. 

The book feels a little like an impressionistic painting. You can get a little lost in the details of some dragging side stories and some of the magical realism elements, but by focusing on the overall ideas (and ignoring some less than believable coincidences) you feel the pull of its power and beauty.

4.5 ⭐️