Translate My Heart

Sonya Hartnett’s The Ghost’s Child is a story of love and loss. Told in beautiful prose, the novel starts with an aging Matilda (Maddy) as she recounts her life story to a young boy that suddenly appeared on her doorstep. Maddy starts with her story about growing up in a well-to-do family with an “iron man” of a father who was more concerned with earning money and an absent mother who spent her time with her friends and charities than with Maddy. An only child, Maddy grew up in solitude becoming a quiet, observant child. When she was not in boarding school, she spent her time by the shore watching the water and the birds. After she finished school and traveled the world with her father, Maddy unexpectedly met a young man “tousled and tameless as a flash of lightning” who she calls Feather. She falls madly in love with mysterious Feather and they go off to live happily in a cottage by the sea. One day, Feather does not come home and Maddy goes off searching for him, searching for an answer to a question.My first Sonya Hartnett book and I am hooked. Her writing style and prose is so unbelievably beautiful and enchanting, especially her descriptions. “Overhead, the sky was mottling cobalt and ruby. The earliest stars came out to glitter on the waves. The moon hung frostily, close to the water, a skating rink for fireflies.” Her story was very much character driven as the plot follows Maddy’s growth and journey of love and loss. Poignant and enchanting.