Why a Booktrail?
Miquel Reina maps out ambitious and fantastical new territory in a novel about a couple holding on for dear life as their world takes an extraordinary fall…
Lights on the Sea
What you need to know before your trail
On the highest point of an island, in a house clinging to the edge of a cliff, live Mary Rose and Harold Grapes, a retired couple still mourning the death of their son thirty-five years before. Weighed down by decades of grief and memories, the Grapeses have never moved past the tragedy. Then, on the eve of eviction from the most beautiful and dangerously unstable perch in the area, they’re uprooted by a violent storm. The disbelieving Grapeses and their home take a free-fall slide into the white-capped sea and float away.
As the past that once moored them recedes and disappears, Mary Rose and Harold are delivered from decades of sorrow by the ebb and flow of the waves. Ahead of them, a light shimmers on the horizon, guiding them toward a revelatory and cathartic new engagement with life, and all its wonder.
Travel Guide
Brent Island
Mr and Mrs Grape live in a house just outside the picturesque town of San Remo de Mar which is sadly fictional, but it’s one of the pretty and special place on the island it says.
However, certain names and goings on make this town of San Remo reveal its dark sides:
“It perched defiantly on the edge of Death Cliff, right over the ocean.”
San Remo
“San Remo was a small town on a rocky island in the middle of a cold ocean, so isolated that the rest of the world barely knew it was there. Life there was monotonous and the locals were distrustful of everything: outsiders, change, and even their own neighbors.”
“On a clear day, the townsfolk would see Mr and Mrs Grape’s bright-yellow house from miles away, whether they were strolling the fertile hillsides of volcanic rock or sailing the small island’s chilly waters.”
The island does sound lovely – there are trails and beaches and plenty of beach patios where “San Remo’s inhabitants take advantage of the rare warmth and clear sky”
Mr and Mrs Grape pack up their things as they know it’s the last night in their home. There;s plenty of bottles which Mr Grape uses to create miniatures of historical ships. He’s fascinated by them and used to work on the shipyards as a boy.
The sea
On one stormy night a storm of epic proportions whips the tiny island and snapped the wires which secure their lonely home to the cliff. Their home slips into the open jaws of the waiting sea. Instead of sinking however, it floats and that’s when the adventures begin….
They battle lava, water and all manner of obstacles including an iceberg. The language here matches the swirling, chilling waters. It’s lyrical, moving. It rises and falls to show the power of the water, and the need for escape.
It’s when they reach land that the next part of their journey of survival begins. This is a remote place, they have no idea where they are. Above them, towers a mountain of epic proportions. They have decisions to make and their lives depend on them.
Booktrailer Review
Susan:@thebooktrailer
There is so much to love with this book. It’s an adventure, a look at the human spirit and soul, but at the centre is an old couple and their home floating into the sea which was symbolic for so many things.
” A home isn’t built with walls or determined by where we are, a home is built from our experiences , from the people we meet along the way , and, more than anything, from how we decide to journey through life . Life is a movement. A precarious equilibrium that can change in an instant.”
The book reads lyrically and emotionally and it’s quite a journey. The idea of Mr and Mrs Grape living in a little yellow house on the cliffs of Brent island fascinated me and when their house goes into the sea,, the adventure starts and I was swept along with them.
It’s magical when reading it and it does pull at the heartstrings! It’s fantastical in places and the characters play the leading roles in the book. Its all about them, they carry the story and more. Then there’s the metaphors of the sea, the emotional turmoil of life, the ups and downs, the journey of a couple quite literarlaly ‘at sea’ in their lives and wait until they find land and have a life or death situation to deal with.
This novel can be read in many ways I think as it brings up a whole host of ways of looking at yourself, at your life, the direction its going in etc and a way to see what moves and motivates you too.
The translator has done a fantastic job as it reads lyrically as Spanish often does so this makes me want to go and buy the original now.
A novel about dreams and hope and everything in between. Loved it.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Lights on the Sea
Destination : Fictional Brent Island, Canada Author/Guide: Miquel Reina Departure Time: Dystopian
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