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Leah Bobet: An Inheritance of Ashes
Jun. 17th, 2018 09:29 pmLeah Bobet’s An Inheritance of Ashes is a strong and often bitter draught indeed. Set in a world that is both post-apocalyptic, and recovering from a very recent brutal war with thr Dark God and the Twisted, poisoned creatures that followed it, the taint of loss and precarity leaves marks on every situation and relationship.
The centre of the story is life on Roadstead Farm, where two sisters struggle to eke out an existence, their childhood amity, borne out of a bond to protect each other from the anger of their widowed father, frayed by the tensions of survival. Marthe, the older sister, is pregnant; her husband Thom went away to the war and has not returned, and there is no word as to whether he is alive, or dead. Hallie, the narrator, is just 16, and has seen her family fragment around her, and her friend Tyler, one of the few who returned from the war, wounded, turn distant and bitter.
Into this place of quiet desperation comes another veteran of the war. Calling himself Heron, he has offered to serve as hired hand at Roadstead Farm in return for room and board over the winter. He bears with him in secret a dark relic, the weapon used to bring down the Dark God. John Balsam, the man who wielded the weapon, has been missing since the last battle, but the blade has come to Heron - how, he does not want to say - and he’s taking it home to Balsam’s family. But that road is long, and he will not get there before the winter falls and a man travelling alone is likely to freeze, or starve.
But not long after Heron’s arrival there are sightings on Roadstead farm, and elsewhere in the lake lands surrounding it, of the surviving misbegotten creatures, the Twisted Things. As winter draws near, more of the Twisted Things appear. Stranger still, someone, or something, is leaving messages written in stones on the riverside, begging for help. Fearing that Marthe will drive her away, as their father drove out his brother, Hallie is drawn into a web of secrets that only serves to further separate her from the grieving, angry Marthe.
Even what could be one bright thing in Hallie’s life, a slow growing attachment to her childhood friend Tyler, is burdened with secrets, sorrows, and the trauma of war and wounds, emotional and physical, that may never be whole.
But... when things are at their worst, and it seems that not just Riadstead Farm, but every homestead in the lake land, and the community of Windstown at its heart, are about to be overthrown by the same darkness that came before, love and truth find a way to break down the barriers of pride, and anger, and fear, and against all odds, prevail.
The centre of the story is life on Roadstead Farm, where two sisters struggle to eke out an existence, their childhood amity, borne out of a bond to protect each other from the anger of their widowed father, frayed by the tensions of survival. Marthe, the older sister, is pregnant; her husband Thom went away to the war and has not returned, and there is no word as to whether he is alive, or dead. Hallie, the narrator, is just 16, and has seen her family fragment around her, and her friend Tyler, one of the few who returned from the war, wounded, turn distant and bitter.
Into this place of quiet desperation comes another veteran of the war. Calling himself Heron, he has offered to serve as hired hand at Roadstead Farm in return for room and board over the winter. He bears with him in secret a dark relic, the weapon used to bring down the Dark God. John Balsam, the man who wielded the weapon, has been missing since the last battle, but the blade has come to Heron - how, he does not want to say - and he’s taking it home to Balsam’s family. But that road is long, and he will not get there before the winter falls and a man travelling alone is likely to freeze, or starve.
But not long after Heron’s arrival there are sightings on Roadstead farm, and elsewhere in the lake lands surrounding it, of the surviving misbegotten creatures, the Twisted Things. As winter draws near, more of the Twisted Things appear. Stranger still, someone, or something, is leaving messages written in stones on the riverside, begging for help. Fearing that Marthe will drive her away, as their father drove out his brother, Hallie is drawn into a web of secrets that only serves to further separate her from the grieving, angry Marthe.
Even what could be one bright thing in Hallie’s life, a slow growing attachment to her childhood friend Tyler, is burdened with secrets, sorrows, and the trauma of war and wounds, emotional and physical, that may never be whole.
But... when things are at their worst, and it seems that not just Riadstead Farm, but every homestead in the lake land, and the community of Windstown at its heart, are about to be overthrown by the same darkness that came before, love and truth find a way to break down the barriers of pride, and anger, and fear, and against all odds, prevail.
