The Ruined Grove and other stories - Wendy Tardieu - Bog

The Ruined Grove is a collection of stories that explores human isolation and displacement accented by the backdrop of magic and mystery. The characters are often cynical and disenchanted while harboring deeply suppressed longings. They are guided by strange events and circumstances that ultimately transform their world-views. Young, irreverent newlyweds visit a hotel with a unique amenity. Two sisters become trapped between memory and reality when stranded on a mysterious back road. A jaded bank employee becomes obsessed with a rare, undiscovered bill, and a young girl with a special gift teaches a lesson in pride and identity. Each story provides a window into an ordinary life at the moment it slips into the extraordinary. The common thread of loneliness and loss runs throughout the collection, explored with multiple points of view and interconnected plots that link characters and places. The stories take each character out of his or her comfort zone to a place where convictions are tested and often demolished by the shifting margins of dreams, visions and memory. From debilitating self-denial to the bitter longing for a sense of self, the themes present in the collection always end in the subtle placement of hope and triumph.