Waterfalls of Stars: Ten Years on Skomer Island

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For a transportive reading experience, you can hardly do better than Waterfalls of Stars – I dare say it’ll be an experience you won’t forget in a hurry. There’s at least no way to underestimate the power of mother nature in this place, a feeling Alexander so elegantly imbues in the reader through her vibrant prose that it’s like waking up from a dream when you’re closing the pages of this book. In all likelihood, she wrote plentiful of journals that the memoir is based on – as it feels so present. I felt I was right there on the island, the beautiful descriptions of the landscape and its inhabitants.

With her lyrical evocation of the natural world and its enthusiastic and resourceful approach to the problems of island life, Alexander s book will inspire and entertains anyone who has felt the need for escape. Rosanne Alexander was a student of wildlife illustration in Carmarthen at the beginning of her Skomer adventure. The descriptions of Skomer in this book are evocatively crafted; if you have ever considered becoming a hermit, even temporarily, reading this will do nothing to quell that desire. She complains that she only agreed to sign up for the job on Skomer with her then boyfriend because he said they wouldn't get it.

It was impossible to enter the water there without feeling the breath snag in the back of my throat and thinking ‘never again’, but its appearance was so limpidly enticing that I fell victim to its temptations again and again. It gives off a melody – sometimes cacophony, sometimes not – of Puffins, Shearwaters, and Kittiwakes.

By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions.For both the amateur and the professional astronomer it is an intriguing guidebook to the changing night skies over Wales in each season. Her new book, Waterfalls of Stars: My Ten Years on the Island of Skomer (Seren, 2017) gives an account of experiences of the wildlife, landscape and life on the uninhabited island. But, as with the other island authors, what shines through is her love for her way of life, the delight she takes in the flora and fauna of her habitat and the pleasure it gives her to be providing and guarding a sanctuary for the wild birds and animals in her care. But Rosanne Alexander revelled in her new surroundings and remained on Skomer Island for ten further years with her husband Mike as warden. It is experiential, fresh, and alive, reflecting the peripheral environment where this book was born.