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    A Green and Ancient Light
    Unavailable
    A Green and Ancient Light
    Unavailable
    A Green and Ancient Light
    Audiobook10 hours

    A Green and Ancient Light

    Written by Frederic S. Durbin

    Narrated by Matthew Lloyd Davies

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

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    About this audiobook

    Set in a world similar to our own, during a war that parallels World War II, a young boy who is sent to stay at his grandmother's for the summer in a serene fishing village is met with the adventure of a lifetime.

    Their tranquility is shattered by the crash of a bullet-riddled enemy plane, the arrival of grandmother's friend, Mr. Girandole—a man who knows the true story of Cinderella's slipper—and the discovery of a riddle in the sacred grove of ruins behind grandmother's house. In a sumptuous idyllic setting and overshadowed by the threat of war, four unlikely allies learn the values of courage and sacrifice.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamscape Media Audio
    Release dateAug 12, 2019
    ISBN9781974978557
    Author

    Frederic S. Durbin

    Frederic S. Durbin is a writer and novelist of fantasy and horror. His first novel, Dragonfly, was published by Arkham House in 1999. It was nominated for an International Horror Guild Award for Best First Novel.

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    Reviews for A Green and Ancient Light

    4.5/5

    4 ratings3 reviews

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    • 5/5
      What I expected was a standard, but entertaining, story about partisans who hide an enemy combatant. What I got was much more delightful - a beautiful coming of age story set in a woods filled with mysterious statues. I was hooked about 30 pages in, when the author reveals the truth about Grandmother's friend. Part mystery and part fantasy, the book touches on the innocence of childhood and the longing for a secret place. The ongoing war is kept in the background, providing just a hint of danger, along with the aching of separation that conflict always brings. Although marketed for adults, I would give this to teens or older children as well.
    • 5/5
      In an alternate Italy in World War 2, a nine year old boy has been sent to spend the summer with his grandmother in her rural home, safely away from the fighting and bombings. His father is in the army, and his mother is recovering from giving birth. He misses his family and friends, and is somewhat bored by country life. Then one day an enemy plane comes screaming over the village and crashes into the bay. This event turns everything upside down. That night, a quiet knock comes on the grandmother’s back door. It’s an old friend of hers, needing help. The boy gets multiple shocks that night; the enemy pilot is alive, his grandmother is capable of sewing up people, the old friend is a faun, and there is an overgrown garden of stone monsters in the woods where the other villagers never go. As the days go by with the pilot healing, the boy explores both the stone monsters and his grandmother’s past. It’s a magical time for him, but reality intrudes constantly; a major arrives with a unit of men, bent of locating the missing enemy pilot. They make the boy’s explorations difficult to say the least. Between keeping the pilot hidden and trying to figure out what the inscriptions of the stone monsters mean, he and his grandmother have their hands full. And it will turn out that both those endeavors have a common answer. The prose is so stunningly beautiful that it took my breath away. I’d be willing to say that this book will be a new classic; it’s up there with Ray Bradbury, C.S. Lewis, J.M. Barrie, and Charles de Lint. The story unfolds slowly but steadily. It’s as much an adventure of the mind as of the body. Told by the narrator in adulthood but with the eyes of a nine year old, it’s an enchanted tale, suitable for kids to adults.
    • 4/5
      I'm tempted to call Frederic Durbin the master of setting. I loved his description of an October evening in Dragonfly. I wanted more stories that explored the world of the Rake in The Star Shard. Now, in A Green and Ancient Light, he dropped me into a small seaside village and a secluded grove filled with bizarre statues that I delighted to explore with the hero. It's a tale of a nine-year-old boy who is spending the summer with his grandmother while his mother cares for his infant sister and his father is away with the war. Which war is never specified. Neither are the names of the country, village or even the characters.* An enemy pilot is shot down nearby and is discovered by Girandole, a friend of the grandmother. Girandole has a name because he's somewhat unusual. Since Grandmother doesn't consider the wounded pilot an enemy, she treats his wounds and the trio hide him out in the grove. The grove itself is a puzzle, perhaps connected to a world of legend. The story then is a blend of the task of hiding the pilot and unraveling the mystery of the statuary.I didn't find the story as compelling as Mr. Durbin's previous novels. However, I can't help but love how Mr. Durbin made it all so real, mixing in small little mundane details while still keeping a sense of mystery and magic. It's definitely a book worth checking out.___* I don't know why he redacted all the names, but it does make for a second mystery to unravel. The clues are all there, though I have to confess that I didn't really puzzle out where the story took place before I read the answer in the acknowledgements.--J.