Books: Lamp Black, Wolf Gray
Exclusive interview with author Paula Brackston and a review of her new novel about time travel and Merlin
Rating: Three Stars
Review by Gabrielle Pantera
“The house was my inspiration for Lamp Black, Wolf Gray,” says author Paula Brackston. “For nine years I lived in a remote Welsh longhouse, which was probably built in the 15th century, or possibly earlier. It was off the grid, so for two years we had no phone or any sort of electricity, nor was there a cell phone signal. The house is situated in such a way, at the top of a high valley, that you can see for thirty miles or more, but you can’t see another house, or hear a road. It’s a low, stone, whitewashed building, with the bedrooms up in the roof, and had remained pretty much unchanged for centuries.”
Lamp Black, Wolf Gray is written in two different times, the time of Merlin and the present and is told from the point of view of two different women; Megan in the past and Laura in the present. There could have been more of a connection between their stories but the descriptions of Wales will give you wanderlust to see how beautiful it really is is. Brackston is wonderfully descriptive with Laura’s emotions, but there are also elements that are scary and you will sometimes want to shake Laura out of doing something stupid.
Wee meet Laura Matthews and her husband, who have moved to the Welsh mountains for her to paint, de-stress and hopefully start a family. But these hills are also where a young Merlin walked with his faithful grey wolf at his heel and where he fell in love with Megan, nursemaid to the children of the local noble, Lord Geraint. When Merlin refuses to help Lord Geraint, it’s game on for revenge on Merlin by harming Megan. Laura is able to feel the past and struggles to separate fact from fiction.
“I wanted to write a story that would pull a historically distant set of lives together with a present one,” says Brackston. “My story has Merlin in it, so there was plenty of reading material. Too much really. Being a Welsh wizard, there are many stories about him, and about his possible origins.”
“There were still the ancient flagstones on the floor,” says Brackston of her remote longhouse home. “And a spiral stone staircase led up from the living room to the bedrooms,” says Brackston. “Each step had been worn blunt and smooth by the footsteps of tired farmers and their families going up to bed, or lively children bounding down them in the mornings.”
“I felt that there was also a spiritual imprint of all the people who had lived there before, as if the house retained their memory in its very fabric,” says Brackston. “A full moon could cast shadows as sharp edged as any the sun could manage. And on a cloudy, starless night, it was impossible to see anything at all. Instead one became tuned to the sounds of the night…foxes, badgers, owls, bats, the rain or wind.”
Brackston was shortlisted in the Creme de la Crime search for writers. Her novel Nutters was shortlisted for the Mind Book Award. Another of her works, The Silver Witch, which is her fourth historical fantasy featuring witches, is being considered for a Bram Stoker Award. And as PJ Brackston she writes a historical-crime-fantasy series set in 18th century Bavaria about Gretel, of Hansel and Gretel, all grown up and working as a private detective.
Brackston, who was born in Dorset, moved to Wales as a small child and still lives there, currently in a small farmhouse high up in the Brecon Beacons.
Lamp Black, Wolf Grey: A Novel Paperback by Paula Brackston. Trade Paperback: 336 pages, Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin (August 4, 2015), Language: English. ISBN-13: 978-1250069689
