The Owl Service, Alan Garner
The Owl Service, Alan Garner
List: $19.00 | Sale: $13.30
Club: $9.50

The Owl Service

Author: Alan Garner

Narrator: Wayne Forester

Unabridged: 4 hr 52 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Naxos

Published: 09/29/2008

Synopsis

After hearing scratches in the attic, Alison discovers a dinner service covered in an intriguing floral owl pattern, and a series of events are set in motion that will change her life forever. Alison, her step-brother Roger and Welsh boy Gwyn are forced into a cyclical replay of the tragic Welsh legend of Blodeuwedd, in which a woman is turned into an owl as a punishment for betraying her husband. The Owl Service is a fabulous, multi-layered book of mystery and suspense, but also a contemporary musing on love, class structure and power.

About Alan Garner

Alan Garner is an English novelist best known for his  fantasy novels and his retellings of traditional British folk tales. He was born in Cheshire in 1934 and his childhood was spent in Alderley Edge, where his family has lived for more than four hundred years. His fourth book, The Owl Service, won The Guardian Award and the Carnegie Medal, and was made into a TV series. It has established itself as a contemporary classic and Garner as a writer of distinction. He was awarded the OBE in 2001 for his services to literature.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Sarah

I will admit I didn't 'get' this book the first time I read it. In fact it was not until the third or fourth reading that I really began to understand the plot and central themes. It also certainly helps if you have read the story in the 'Mabinogion' that this book is loosely based upon. Garner's ec......more

Goodreads review by mark

an impressionistic tale of three teens reenacting a deadly eternal triangle in a welsh village. strange yearnings and mysterious motivations are anchored by enjoyably prosaic dialogue, the oddly off-kilter use of slang, and a sharp but subtle sense of warfare between the classes. a nicely clean and......more

Goodreads review by Hilary

The start was full of suspense and we were instantly drawn into the story. The mystery was intriguing, I enjoyed the way it was slowly revealed who the characters were and what their relationship to each other was. The start of the mystery was great, we loved the idea of (view spoiler)[ haunted plates, it made it (hide spoiler)]......more

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