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The Magic Places
For dreamer Clare, a chance encounter with old family acquaintance Marcus brings up haunting memories of a childhood holiday, as they try to come to terms with the events and magic that have shaped their lives.
They meet unexpectedly in a department store, having not seen one another since a long-ago summer in Guernsey that was marred by tragedy. He lost his son, Tom, in inexplicable circumstances; she was Tom's
friend and the last person to see him alive.
The novel flits backwards and forwards in time, from a present-day affair fuelled by grief and loneliness, to the summer when Tom went missing - a time filled with sunshine and enchantment, moving
inexorably towards heartbreak.
The Magic Places is a spellbinding tale of the power of stories and imagination.
They meet unexpectedly in a department store, having not seen one another since a long-ago summer in Guernsey that was marred by tragedy. He lost his son, Tom, in inexplicable circumstances; she was Tom's
friend and the last person to see him alive.
The novel flits backwards and forwards in time, from a present-day affair fuelled by grief and loneliness, to the summer when Tom went missing - a time filled with sunshine and enchantment, moving
inexorably towards heartbreak.
The Magic Places is a spellbinding tale of the power of stories and imagination.
169 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 20, 2017
2 people are currently reading
93 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Jenner
22 books5 followersElizabeth Jenner grew up on the Wirral, and studied for a BA in English and Creative Writing at the University of Warwick. She now lives in London, where she teaches yoga and both writes and commissions fiction and non-fiction titles.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
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May 9, 2017I loved this book. It's magical.
It's about the spaces between 'secret' and 'solitary' and 'lonely', and about when love works and doesn't, and how we go back and forth between the states. It's about childhood magic, as well--the magic is there, though never quite explained, coexisting with a very realistic story of a solitary woman in a relationship with an older married man. The writing is absolutely beautiful.
There's a piece of seaglass mentioned in the book, and that's what this book reminds me of. Broken and sharp-edged things turned into something beautiful by contact. And like seaglass it's entirely self sufficient, not making great state-of-the-nation points, just quietly there. Related to which, Clare is a brilliant portrait of an introvert. I have rarely felt so much kinship with an MC.
A joy to read. Highly recommended.
Disclaimer: The author is a friend, but I didn't read the book in its gestation period and came to it entirely as a reader. I am friends with a *lot* of authors, it's an inevitable consequence of my line of work, and I don't ever give rave reviews unless I mean them.
It's about the spaces between 'secret' and 'solitary' and 'lonely', and about when love works and doesn't, and how we go back and forth between the states. It's about childhood magic, as well--the magic is there, though never quite explained, coexisting with a very realistic story of a solitary woman in a relationship with an older married man. The writing is absolutely beautiful.
There's a piece of seaglass mentioned in the book, and that's what this book reminds me of. Broken and sharp-edged things turned into something beautiful by contact. And like seaglass it's entirely self sufficient, not making great state-of-the-nation points, just quietly there. Related to which, Clare is a brilliant portrait of an introvert. I have rarely felt so much kinship with an MC.
A joy to read. Highly recommended.
Disclaimer: The author is a friend, but I didn't read the book in its gestation period and came to it entirely as a reader. I am friends with a *lot* of authors, it's an inevitable consequence of my line of work, and I don't ever give rave reviews unless I mean them.
December 15, 2017
I always feel tongue-tied when talking about novels, and worry that I won’t be able to find the ‘right’ language to describe my thoughts, but The Magic Places spoke to me in a way that’s so direct and true that I will do my best.
Viewed from one angle, there’s a certain arresting simplicity to the story: a woman and a man meet twenty years after a tragic event that scarred and united them, and we discover both what happened then and what will happen to them now as they reconnect. But the twist in this tale is that something magical and strange did actually happen - and maybe is happening still. And the tension between a reality we can easily recognise and an unexplainable possibility that exists at the edges of perception is one of the intriguing and magnetic elements of this powerful debut novel.
Elizabeth Jenner has a remarkable skill in observing those silences and hesitations that build and break our everyday conversations. The moment before a greeting becomes a hug of welcome. The pause while everything is still all right. The unspoken currents of desire and pain that underlie so many human interactions. While reading, I felt again and again, ‘Yes, I know this - I can see this - I have felt this’, and yet I know how hard it is to reveal these onion-layers of communication with such clarity and poise.
I recommend this book highly and I hope to read more from Elizabeth soon.
Viewed from one angle, there’s a certain arresting simplicity to the story: a woman and a man meet twenty years after a tragic event that scarred and united them, and we discover both what happened then and what will happen to them now as they reconnect. But the twist in this tale is that something magical and strange did actually happen - and maybe is happening still. And the tension between a reality we can easily recognise and an unexplainable possibility that exists at the edges of perception is one of the intriguing and magnetic elements of this powerful debut novel.
Elizabeth Jenner has a remarkable skill in observing those silences and hesitations that build and break our everyday conversations. The moment before a greeting becomes a hug of welcome. The pause while everything is still all right. The unspoken currents of desire and pain that underlie so many human interactions. While reading, I felt again and again, ‘Yes, I know this - I can see this - I have felt this’, and yet I know how hard it is to reveal these onion-layers of communication with such clarity and poise.
I recommend this book highly and I hope to read more from Elizabeth soon.
May 9, 2017
Elizabeth is a friend of mine. I'm friends with a lot of writers but I don't automatically give them five star reviews. There is nothing less that I could give to The Magic Places though. A story about childhood and finding a place in the adult world; about different types of love and how they overlap; about memory and magic. In the acknowledgements Elizabeth gives a nod to both C.S Lewis and Diana Wynne Jones but her writing stands alone. Beautiful prose and sentences that demand unpacking. As a reader you are still unraveling the layers days after the last page has been turned.
June 26, 2017
The Magic Places by Elizabeth Jenner is filled with exactly that. What I appreciated most, as a reader, was that I got to decide if the magic places were actual, metaphorical, or both. Part mystery, part romance, part fantasy, the book might not please purists of any of these genres, but for lovers of good fiction, this book has it all.
The novel follows the story of Clare and Marcus whose paths cross after many years apart. Clare was childhood friends with Marcus’ son who disappeared on a joint family vacation when
Clare was young. As the story unfolds (all from Clare’s perspective), time hopping back and forth between the present and that fateful vacation, the reader learns all that happened to bring the two families together and then to bring Clare and Marcus together again.
While there are many heartbreaks in the story, there is also hope and love. Without these the book might well have been depressing, and the colour I would attribute to it would be dark gray. By the end there was certainly closure that did not leave me disappointed. If you know my writing you know what this means, but I will leave it at that.
The novel follows the story of Clare and Marcus whose paths cross after many years apart. Clare was childhood friends with Marcus’ son who disappeared on a joint family vacation when
Clare was young. As the story unfolds (all from Clare’s perspective), time hopping back and forth between the present and that fateful vacation, the reader learns all that happened to bring the two families together and then to bring Clare and Marcus together again.
While there are many heartbreaks in the story, there is also hope and love. Without these the book might well have been depressing, and the colour I would attribute to it would be dark gray. By the end there was certainly closure that did not leave me disappointed. If you know my writing you know what this means, but I will leave it at that.
May 18, 2017
Tragedy and loss can draw people closer or rip them apart
This novel is worth 5 stars. It is rare to read such a powerful novel; a story that lingers long after the last page has been turned. The writer creates wonderful characters, each flawed in their own way but trying to deal with a terrible incident that takes place during a family holiday.
The story switches back and forth between 1995 and the present day when the two main characters meet by chance. Their shared loss is both part of the attraction and also a deterrent.
Two children that are loners and outsiders are drawn together by their vivid imaginations and the belief that they can sense a parallel world; a world that only they can slip in and out of. This belief causes Tom to slip off into the night and vanish, leaving his family devastated.
Years later, Clare has now grown up and leads a solitary life - no different from her youth but she seems content enough until she meets up with Tom’s father. This encounter changes both the course of her life and Tom’s father as the shared memory of Tom ignites an affair.
The writer has woven a complex story based on human emotion and how we all deal with loss and grief. Her writing is full of detail and as she weaves the story layer upon layer of complexity is revealed. Her characters come alive on the pages and you can sense the pain that they suffer as they struggle to deal with life and loss.
I would gladly read more of Jenner’s work.
Gillian
Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review
This novel is worth 5 stars. It is rare to read such a powerful novel; a story that lingers long after the last page has been turned. The writer creates wonderful characters, each flawed in their own way but trying to deal with a terrible incident that takes place during a family holiday.
The story switches back and forth between 1995 and the present day when the two main characters meet by chance. Their shared loss is both part of the attraction and also a deterrent.
Two children that are loners and outsiders are drawn together by their vivid imaginations and the belief that they can sense a parallel world; a world that only they can slip in and out of. This belief causes Tom to slip off into the night and vanish, leaving his family devastated.
Years later, Clare has now grown up and leads a solitary life - no different from her youth but she seems content enough until she meets up with Tom’s father. This encounter changes both the course of her life and Tom’s father as the shared memory of Tom ignites an affair.
The writer has woven a complex story based on human emotion and how we all deal with loss and grief. Her writing is full of detail and as she weaves the story layer upon layer of complexity is revealed. Her characters come alive on the pages and you can sense the pain that they suffer as they struggle to deal with life and loss.
I would gladly read more of Jenner’s work.
Gillian
Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review
June 12, 2017
If nostalgia is, as Don Draper tells us, a painful yearning to return home, then this extraordinary debut from Elizabeth Jenner is as nostalgic as fiction gets. Clare, a young woman “good at not saying things”, bumps into an old family friend from her childhood, Marcus, now in his fifties, in a department store. They have not seen each other since the shared summer holiday in Guernsey, many years go, when Clare was a girl, and Marcus lost his young son, Tom, in tragic circumstances. Haunting memories of a summer filled with seaglass, magic and loss emerge, and Clare and Marcus begin an unexpected love affair. Jenner writes with a beauty that is reminiscent of Scott Fitzgerald. Her prose has exquisite grace and poise; her sentences hum like electric cables, taut with meaning. The Magic Places is a time machine that takes us back to a place we, like Clare and Marcus, ache to return. Quietly stunning and hauntingly powerful—by any standards, this is a remarkable novel.
August 12, 2017
The Magic Places by Elizabeth Jenner was one of those books that surprised me. One that creeps up and overtakes your thoughts completely. It is not a book of events or crash bang explosions but one of quietness and wonder.
We follow the story of Claire; one of life's dreamers as she remembers back to a Summer long ago. This idyllic summer was marred with a tragedy; one is some ways that Claire thinks she could of stopped. As the story moves backwards and forwards from this tragic summer to modern day I was swept up into it.
As Claire goes about a quite uneventful present her world comes crashing in when she is reunited with a blast from the past!
The Magic Places is an exceptional debut and one that I certainly lost myself in! The story covers so many themes from childhood and love to memory and magic.I would definitely recommend to fans of Jon McGregor and Kent Haruf.
We follow the story of Claire; one of life's dreamers as she remembers back to a Summer long ago. This idyllic summer was marred with a tragedy; one is some ways that Claire thinks she could of stopped. As the story moves backwards and forwards from this tragic summer to modern day I was swept up into it.
As Claire goes about a quite uneventful present her world comes crashing in when she is reunited with a blast from the past!
The Magic Places is an exceptional debut and one that I certainly lost myself in! The story covers so many themes from childhood and love to memory and magic.I would definitely recommend to fans of Jon McGregor and Kent Haruf.
July 8, 2024
Elizabeth Jenner's spare writing-style, her deft weaving of the past and present storylines, her beautifully-drawn characters and her astute observations of human relationships and behaviour all combined to draw me into this remarkable story, one which enables the reader to 'interpret' the magical 'hidden places' which two lonely children, Clare & Tom, are able to enter but which most people cannot see. Tom's disappearance whilst on a shared family holiday on Guernsey is a mystery which remains unexplained but the ongoing impact of this unsettling experience on the adult Clare is explored with impressive psychological credibility.
July 16, 2023
I read this whole thing on the plane and maybe thats why i didnt like it so much but it’s written in a very Contemporary™️ Way and that just pulls me out of the book so much especially when it’s like not using the correct punctuation for speech marks etc. i did get used to it after a while though. It is absolutely fucked up that marcus grooms claire and that she never comes to this realisation or he faces any consequences whatsoever for it and it’s seen as this wonderful whirlwind romance. Also i saw the pregnancy twist about 7 miles off and the second she had the conversation about it with her mum i was no longer invested lol. And also also the pregnancy doesnt count as a consequence for marcus because she makes it very clear that were it not for his extensive efforts to be involved she would likely have never actively involved him in the babys life. And what’s the other outcome he gets to leave an unhappy marriage where he has already hurt his wife what is inferred to be multiple times????? Make this man face up to a single fucked up thing he has done challenge
Also just another thing is that it is absolutely ridiculous that marcus would accept the idea of magical spaces being where his presumed dead son ended up and just being totally chill and fine with it and not have any further reaction to it other than “huh I guess it makes sense” when it’s already been established his loss is so raw the family cant even speak about it??? you’re telling me that she was the last person to see this boy and has definitive proof after he disappeared that he is in this magical place and she never tries ever to get back in?? Just fully accepts the glass and is like oh i guess the only person i ever connected with on a fundamental level is stuck behind some doctor who rose/ten badwolf universe wall stuff?? Make it make sense
My thought process is not whimsical enough for this book unfortunately
Also just another thing is that it is absolutely ridiculous that marcus would accept the idea of magical spaces being where his presumed dead son ended up and just being totally chill and fine with it and not have any further reaction to it other than “huh I guess it makes sense” when it’s already been established his loss is so raw the family cant even speak about it??? you’re telling me that she was the last person to see this boy and has definitive proof after he disappeared that he is in this magical place and she never tries ever to get back in?? Just fully accepts the glass and is like oh i guess the only person i ever connected with on a fundamental level is stuck behind some doctor who rose/ten badwolf universe wall stuff?? Make it make sense
My thought process is not whimsical enough for this book unfortunately
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 10, 2017
Great read
August 14, 2017
A delightful and charming tale of a past childhood seaside holiday entwines with a present serious adult relationship in a magical and enchanting novel.
November 26, 2021
Enchanting writing, very beautiful to read. I felt like so many parts of the characters were in the darkness/shadows too, to tie in with the main plot concept. Very intriguing book.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews