Sky Matthews has to be a meteorologist, her name determines it in some ways. Watching the weather has been her life and she has skills and the science to make it her life’s work. However, through an extended period of time off from work, Sky needs to build back up to working.
The opportunity to monitor strange weather patterns comes up in Cornwall with a trainee for six months and Sky thinks this might be her gentle reintroduction to working. However she did not bank on beings tuck on a tidal island and also not just having to deal with a trainee but well-known television weatherman Sonny Samuels.
Sky is enchanted with St Felix, (a known place if you have read previous novels by this author). The weather patterns are strange, but what is stranger is the myths and legends that the locals are intent on telling Sky and Sonny to make sense of the strange weather. Sky won’t believe it, she has a scientific brain. Sonny on the other hand doesn’t and is simply reading an autocue and certainly not experienced enough to read the weather.
Sky and Sonny rub each other up the wrong way initially as their ides of weather are very different. But when strange things do start to happen not just with the weather but also with Sky , it seems that whatever they have both been hiding needs to be told and will this magical place they both find themselves hold the healing power they need.
Of course not all wounds are obvious and no matter what science and myth tell us some things cannot be healed and they have to be lived with. Ali McNamara draws on her own personal experience and I wept with the honesty that she has fed into the main character. It was refreshing to see hidden illness and disabilities brought tot he forefront in stories.
This book is a pure joy, McNamara’s writing goes from strength to strength. I was whisked away to Cornwall, to the magic of the weather, to the community of St Felix, to myths and mystery. Characters who develop, grow, get better and sometimes get worse but who are all there on the page and pop out from it if I was watching a film.
One of my favourite reads of the summer.
Thank you to the publisher via netgalley for the opportunity to read this book.
Cornish Clouds and Silver Lining Skies is out now.
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