The Owl Service – Alan Garner

We’ve got owl plates that apparently turn into owls, a whole British Romeo and Juliet-ish across classes love story in a cottage in Wales on summer break, and the ancient Welsh myth of Blodeuwedd. I suspect I would have gotten a lot more out of this story when I was in the midst of my Celtic mythology obsession, and was therefore a lot closer to the source material, but I mostly found myself confused.

Blodeuwedd was a woman created of flowers, made to wed one man, but who falls in love with another. In this book, the story has carried on through the ages, and step-siblings Allison and Roger, as well as Gwyn, the son of the house keeper, are fated to play the parts of this tragic love triangle. It ends very abruptly – there’s all this building of tension, and then it’s just over. Like I said, I think I would have enjoyed it more if I were still immersed in the source material.