The Unbroken Beauty of Rosalind Bone

by Alex McCarthy

Tucked into the Welsh valleys and encircled by silver birch and pine, the village of Cwmcysgod may appear a quiet, sleepy sort of place. But beneath the surface, tensions simmer, hearts ache, and painful truths threaten to emerge.

Sixteen-year-old Catrin Bone knows only what she has been told. Now, she is beginning to question her small world, and a version of the past that seems to entrap and embitter her reclusive mother, Mary.

Mary had a sister once, a girl of unparalleled beauty. Why did she disappear from the village in a shroud of shame all those years ago - and where is she now?

Meanwhile the Clements brothers, skint and all out of hope, run rampant across the hills and lanes. And old Dai Bevel, whose frailty masks a dark history, dreams of a girl he used to know...

The sins of the past are approaching, for it takes a village: to raise a child, to bring down a woman, to hide something monstrous and to look the other way.

176 pages, Paperback

Published June 27, 2024

About the author

I'm a 24 year-old recently published author through GerriCon books. 'If Only They Knew' has already spent time in the top 3,000 on the Kindle best-sellers list inside it's first two weeks of release. I love football, and I've gotten to know the M1 extremely well due to my south-east restrictions, which has played home to many frustrations in my support of Newcastle United. As you will see by my blogs Music is also very important for me, as are film and television. I was born and bred in Hemel Hempstead (beautiful stretch of the world,you'll have to take my word for it...). I'm currently penning the sequel to my debut novel 'Now They Know' which I hope to be ready for a summer 13' release :)

Reviews

[Jenna PT · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a lovely read. A nice short book set in my home country. Was lovely to read phrases and sayings that I use on a daily basis. A very descriptive book. Loved all the little storylines that inter linked. Devastating and heartwarming all rolled in one. Da Iawn!

[Book_Worm_Jim.83 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was advised to buy and read this by a Waterstone book seller whilst I was in store. It was Welsh book of the month so I purchased it. I am glad I did. Its packed with plot twists, great character development and packs a punch towards the end!

[Susanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

The brilliance is the simplicity of the book, the normal life, the everyday horror and the ever lasting hope of people.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather…’

For shade you need light, else all will be utter darkness. So it proves for the village of Cwmcysgod, the name of which could be translated as ‘shady coombe or shadowy dale’. For dark deeds have occurred here, on which light will finally be shone years later; and it all begins with arson and a grass fire.

Set in the South Wales valleys, this novella is beautifully written despite its sombre themes – jealousy, agoraphobia, substance abuse, criminality and, distressingly, more – with the eye of its omniscient narrator roving over the thoughts and actions of key players through successive short chapters.

And, as is the way of the world, outcomes for those players are a mix of the fortunate and the unfortunate, though not always in the way they might deserve given how they’ve behaved.

Who is Rosalind Bone exactly? The sister of the rather plainer Mary Bone, she disappeared from Cwmcysgod in 1978 just after a pit disaster in which, along with a number of other men, their father died; it’s said she went off to model in London. But how does that explain why, in 2001, Mary refuses to leave her home, sending daughter Catrin out when things are needed? Also, why does she keep a photograph of Rosalind hidden in a kitchen drawer?

And Catrin, how is she coping? She has her sketch book, but no friends to speak of. She once used to be friends with Daniel Clements in primary school, but now he spends his time out of school with his ne’er-do-well brother Shane and his druggie friends, getting up to mischief and arson.

Then there’s old Mrs Williams at the village shop – now she’s a rum person, her – and creepy Dai Bevel who has an eye for very young pretty girls but is steadily dementing alone in his house, and the Witch who’s rumoured to live in the hillside woods overlooking Cwmcysgod, situated somewhere (we surmise) between the Taff and Rhymney valleys. How do all these individuals relate to or impact on each other, and what is the strain that comes from living in a community of gossips, among neighbours who are strangers, in families with secrets they won’t share?

The Unbroken Beauty of Rosalind Bone is a taut, intense novella which packs a lot in a few pages by excising all but essentials. As well as telling the lives of individuals, whose fates we really want to know about, it is a lament for scattered communities built on an industry which no longer exists, communities whose proud memories of past toil and disasters cannot efface the knowledge that an uncertain future, without hope and lacking direction, is what stretches out in front of them.

Ultimately, though, this is a tale about sisters, once close, then estranged. Can these female siblings ever find and support each other again? The author keeps us guessing.

“For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands.”
— Christina Rossetti, ‘Goblin Market’.