Jessica recommends... Tangled Roots - Maria Turtschaninoff

Jessica says... Probably my favourite read of the year so far - certainly the most interesting. Take one rural community in Finland, and trace the stories and characters over several centuries. The generations pass and their concerns and interests change, but they remain 'rooted' to the place and the landscape (which sounds absolutely stunning!). The story winds through the years and the centuries, resulting in one epic tale that also contains many separate and interweaving stories. There are elements of fantasy, nature writing, mystery, adventure, romance and even an epistolary chapter.

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An old soldier carves a croft out of the Finnish forest and calls it home, but try as he might to tame the land, its magic endures. For centuries his descendants will work the farm, their fates entangled with the rhythms of the ancient wilderness, where mysterious shapes flit between the trees and danger lurks in the treacherous fen...

Like dragonflies darting over the marsh, their lives glimmer briefly and then are gone. But through war, famine and heartbreak, what endures is the wild, and the certainty that wherever we put down roots, the land will grow roots in us too.