The Binding

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It becomes clear as time progresses that this is not our world – we hear vague discussions about the Crusades, but these are within living memory, and whilst we are never given detailed information on them, we are led to believe that they are to do with books, and binders. It’s just one of the many things in his life he doesn’t understand: why did his family feel he had brought disgrace to their home? Why was he so ill before he moved to the bindery? And why does he feel hatred towards Lucian Darnay, a boy his own age who arrives at Seredith’s home one day. But his curiosity is piqued by the people who come and go from the inner sanctum, and the arrival of the lordly Lucian Darnay, with whom he senses a connection, changes everything. In a vault under his mentor’s workshop, row upon row of books – and memories – are meticulously stored and recorded. I also wish there had been more world-building. The existence of crusades in this Victorian setting is fascinating but not built on. Neither is the Binding trade, which is central to the novel.

Some books entice you with their details , their wonderfully alluring premise, and work their way so very well into your imagination, that you are ever so sad to see them end. This was such a book. This is a mysterious story, one that brings together love in the case of Emmett and Lucien. It is a story of family, of mystery, and of how our memories erased can change exactly who we are and how we face the future unknowing of the dangers that have been erased. Young Emmett Farmer is working in the fields when a strange letter arrives summoning him away from his family. He is to begin an apprenticeship as a Bookbinder—a vocation that arouses fear, superstition, and prejudice among their small community but one neither he nor his parents can afford to refuse.She has written seven young adult titles as B. R. Collins. [2] Her first, The Traitor Game, won the 2009 Branford Boase Award. [2] by the processes, the materials – the coloured papers, gold, leather, beeswax, silk – and the tools, which are made of wood and bone and metal. It was all wonderfully tactile, with a sort of subtle glamour that made me imagine another, older, world.. It was hard for me to connect with this story in the beginning. The intricate descriptions and vague plot set-up had my attention dwindling. I actually considering putting The Binding down, but thankfully I pushed through, and by part two I was hooked!

A slow start, but I'm so glad to have continued The Binding, as I ended up really enjoying the rest of the story! Books are dangerous things in Collins’s alternate universe, a place vaguely reminiscent of 19th-century England. After Emmett’s memories of the time he spent with Darnay are bound into a book, Emmett falls ill. This is where the story begins. All the above mentioned is a puzzle pieced together along the narrative. The Binding plays with love and power in a way that many seem to lose. Young Emmett Farmer is working in the fields when a strange letter arrives summoning him away from his family. He is to begin an apprenticeship as a Bookbinder—a vocation that arouses fear, superstition, and prejudice amongst their small community, but one neither he nor his parents can afford to refuse. We’ve been called witches since the beginning of time. Word-cunning, they used to call it—of a piece with invoking demons…We were burned for it too. The Crusade wasn’t new, we’ve always been scapegoats. Well, knowledge is always a kind of magic, I suppose. Emmett Farmer is a young man with issues. He used to think that he would inherit his family’s farm. It was the life he was used to and the road he expected to follow to, and beyond, the horizon. But he has not been himself lately. His abilities have deteriorated. He loses himself, in time, suffering dizziness, nausea, and weakness. Some say he was cursed by a witch. When he is offered an apprenticeship with a bookbinder, it offers a way out, however frightening the career and his mentor might be.So this book has many good things to recommend it—a fascinating premise, sympathetic main characters, plus one very good supporting character, many instances of beautiful and atmospheric writing, a gothic style setting, and plenty of mystery. But the relationship between the two main characters took center stage after part one, which I feel took something away from the general story and left no room for the author to explore the act of binding or its effect on that society, especially with a change in viewpoint. The ending was also a bit too tidy for me and didn’t answer some lingering questions.