#Titanuary-‘Skein Island’ by Aaliyah Whiteley

About the book…

From the author of ‘The Loosening Skin’ and ‘The Beauty’, a powerful and disturbing look at the roles we play, and how they form and divide us. This new edition features a brand new novelette set in the same world as Skein Island.

Skein Island, since 1945 a private refuge for women, lies in turbulent waters twelve miles off the coast of Devon. Visitors are only allowed by invitation from the reclusive Lady Amelia Worthington. Women stay for one week, paying for their stay with a story from their past; a Declaration for the Island’s vast library.

Marianne’s invitation arrives shortly before her quiet life at the library is violently interrupted, the aftermath leaving her husband David feeling helpless. Now, just like her mother did seventeen years ago, she must discover what her story is. Secrets are buried deep on Skein Island. The monsters of Ancient Greece and the atrocities of World War II, heroes and villains with their seers and sidekicks, and the stories of a thousand lifetimes all threaten to break free.

But every story needs an ending, whatever the cost.

So many thanks to Lydia at Titan Books for my gifted review copy of Skein Island by Aaliyah Whitely, I am so incredibly delighted to be reading this amazing book, due out on November 5th in the UK.

Quite simply, this is a stunningly written tale of a woman looking for what it means to be a woman, and how by trying to avoid the ‘mistakes’ her mother made leads her to Skein Island.

Marianne’s invitation is not only an anomlay, arriving in the post signed by a woman who no longer exists, and at exactly a time when she needs to escape. She works in a library, a guardian of the stories that she lends out, recommends, and reshelves when finished with. The peace and respite of this place is shattered by an encounter that Marianne struggles to deal with and subsequently, she leaves nothing more than a Post It note to show her husband that she has gone.

In an echo of her own mother’s disappearance, she takes up the invitation to Skein Island, where no men are allowed, no charge is made except a story which is to be stored in a vault in the basement in the manor house. The outside world views it as a middle class, middle aged women’s retreat-denying the elemental power which is created when a group of women come together and share their experiences.

Back in Wootton Bassett, David’s tale goes on, told in the third person, as he casts himself in the role of saviour and tries-heroically, or so he thinks-to bring his lover back home. Marianne’s tale is told in the first person lending a sense of intimacy and closeness to her narrative which is missing from David’s. Searching for Marianne leads David to a pub where Marianne’s father has spent the majority of his days, and entry into a bizarre game which is also echoed on the island.

With overtones of Greek mythology in the aspect of Homeric tradition-the women are seen as muses, the discovery in an ancient cave in Greece is an elemental female one who pulls men to pieces, the telling of tales to bind those listening together-and an underlying folk horror thread pulling this together, the women on the island find more than they expect to when breaking into the vault to help Marianne lay her mother’s legacy to rest.

As a knitter and crocheter, it never fails to amaze me how a skein of wool, which was once the fleece of a sheep, can be then transformed into a ball of wool and then woven into something which can be worn and treasured. The skein of the title can be said to represent a weaving of identity, an unravelling and coming together of sorts and also creating a binding effect. The effort of the woman and the skein of her tale are woven by her voice into something quite beautiful.

A haunting and lyrical fantasy with roots firmly in a feminist storytelling narrative, ‘Skein Island’  was completely absorbing and original, very difficult to put down and with themes that the reader muses on for quite some time after finishing. I am very much looking forward to her next book, ‘The Loosening Skin’ which is re-released by Titan this year.

About the author…

Aliya Whiteley was born in Devon in 1974, and currently lives in West Sussex, UK.

She writes novels, short stories and non-fiction and has been published in places such as The Guardian, Interzone, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Black Static, Strange Horizons, and anthologies such as Unsung Stories’ 2084 and Lonely Planet’s Better than Fiction I and II. She has been shortlisted for a Shirley Jackson Award, British Fantasy and British Science Fiction awards, the John W Campbell Award, and a James Tiptree Jr award.

Her stories are unpredictable; they can be terrifying, tender, ferocious and deeply funny. She also regularly reviews film, books and television for Den of Geek

Twitter @AliyaWhiteley

@TitanBooks

Links-http://aliyawhiteley.wordpress.com/