Billie's Kiss (original 2002; edition 2002)

I first stumbled upon Elizabeth Knox through her first novel The Vintner's Luck. I'm not sure what about it captured my imagination--okay, I'll admit to being shallow and tell you that sharing her last name was the first impetus for picking her book up at the bookstore--but something about that cover copy and the picture (plus her name) grabbed me and I ended up taking the book home with me. I absolutely wallowed in it. It was exquisite and I knew I would obsessively buy her books as I saw them come out. So when I found this one, I immediately snapped it up and promptly stowed it on a shelf to be forgotten in the mists of time. Seriously, I've owned it unread since 2002. But it seemed like the right time to blow the dust from the top edge and actually read it. I was hoping for another transcendent reading experience. Sadly I was disappointed. That is not to say that it isn't a good book, after all, how many times in one life can an author be transcendent, right? But I wanted to be blown away here and there was something holding me back from that sort of over the top reaction.

Billie is a young woman traveling with her very pregnant sister and brother-in-law to his new place of employment as a cataloguer for Lord Hallowhulme on a remote Scottish island. The trip has been long and rather arduous given pregnant Edith's desperate sea-sickness. Just minutes from landing, Billie and her brother-in-law kiss and Billie jumps from the ship. A heartbeat later, the ship explodes and many of the people on board are drowned, including Billie's sister Edith. Murdo Hesketh, a distant kinsman of Lord Hallowhulme's, undertakes an investigation into the explosion, initially convinced that Billie has had a hand in sabotage. While the mystery of the exploding boat weaves desultorily through the novel, the book as a whole is more a character study of Billie and Murdo, examining their past lives, ferreting out the secrets that have formed them into the remote, solitary beings they are in the pages of the novel.

With a narrative akin to swimming through layers of viscous liquid, this is a slow moving and awkwardly paced novel. Knox has pegged the desolation and spare beauty of the setting very well. The spareness is echoed in the characters' interactions with each other and the personal connections between them, main characters and supporting characters, needed more to make them real. A few of the drowned characters, those closest to Billie and Murdo, are given backstories but for the most part, even with backstory, they remain almost as enigmatic as the main characters do. After a languid investigation, the truth about the explosion comes out. Unfortunately it comes out quickly and cursorily, which leaves it at odds with the pace of the rest of the book. It also rather comes out of left field, disconcertingly enough. Despite these problems, Knox is clearly an impressive writer, having a lovely way with words. She submerges her reader deeply into the narrative and has recreated beautifully the turn of the twentieth century, drawing characters who exist comfortably within their time period. This may not have struck me the way that The Vintner's Luck did, but I will still look for Knox's other works (maybe even on my own shelves again?). ( )

Plot Summary:
This book is said to be based on The Tempest but I haven't read the play and was not in the mood to give it a try so I can't verify that or make comparisons.

In the early 20th C before WW1 Billie is on her way to Stolsnay a town on a Scottish Isle with her sister Edith and her sister's husband Henry. It is his new job that is taking them to the island as he is to do some cataloging work for the owner of the island, Lord Hallowhulme, at Kiss Castle.

On their way there, practically at dock, there is an explosion and the ship founders and sinks - many on board perish. Billie survives and Henry is badly injured but Edith drowned. Also on board was Lord Hallowhulme's kinsman Murdo Hesketh who survives but loses his manservant of 10+ years.

The book has two main threads, Billie's story as she struggles to come to grips of her sisters death, a stranger in a strange land and Murdo who in grief that he refuses to recognize pursues his own inquiry into the ships sinking believing that it was foul play. The two threads eventually join together. Amongst this plot are many subplots and many other characters.

My Opinion:
Overall it was an OK book to read but I wouldn't recommend it to family or friends for fear they wouldn't like it. Some of the language in the book didn't seem right, like it was a writing exercise or showing off and irritated me! I could imagine the author with a dictionary beside her trying to change a perfectly ordinary paragraph into a grammatically awkward yet 'literary' prose.

I was also disappointed with the final few chapters, the wrap-up after the climax (which was itself really good). I think the book could have done without those final 20 - 40 pages. The plot became incredibly sketchy and weak and did not add to positively to the overall story at all.

I have read The Vintners Luck by the same author and LOVED it - this one is not as good. ( )