Lisl Reviews: To Catch a Falling Star

To Catch a Falling Star by Anna Belfrage

Lisl reviews and reminisces about The Graham Saga

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To Catch a Falling Star

Drawing June 13
The drawing has been held and a winner announced at Facebook.
Please see new reviews for more chances!

The Prodigal Son is a recipient
of the B.R.A.G. Medallion 

As the eighth and final installment in Anna Belfrage’s The Graham Saga series, To Catch a Falling Star found me reluctant to read as well as hungry to devour it. I’d accidentally fallen in with Alex Lind, who beckoned me into her world—both of them, time traveler that she is—when I reviewed number three, The Prodigal Son. It transported me and, knowing I simply had to read all from the start, I set out, smugly comfortable with my fat stack of books, assured of a brilliant journey that would last for some time to come. Reading Falling Star’s opening lines began the end of this long journey.

Isaac Lind should not have drunk quite as much as he did that evening, but flushed by the success of his latest exhibition, he allowed himself to be dragged along, to be toasted in pint after pint of lager.

He caressed the wooden frame of the picture, a depiction of a somnolent courtyard[…] In the middle a fountain, a constant welling of water[…] In olive greens and muted browns, with the odd dash of whites and startling blues, the water spilled over the fountain’s edge to fall in transparent drops towards the ground[…] He tried to break eye contact with the falling water, but now he heard it as well, the pitter-patter of drops on wet stone, the trickling sound of water running through a narrow channel, and there, just where he had painted it, a minute point of white beckoned and promised, entrapping his eyes in a shaft of dazzling light.

A Rip in the Veil is a B.R.A.G.
Medallion honoree and Book
of the Month Award winner

Isaac’s mother, Alex, had fallen through a rip in the veil of time when he was just a toddler, and apart from one short encounter, has not seen her since. His grandmother’s paintings having played a role in these events, this opening then serves as foreboding. Now 32, a veteran time traveler at it again, certainly he may be able to see his mother once more. Apart from the vagaries of shifting through eras, the relationship is complicated by mother and son’s personal history, pertaining both to Isaac’s birth as well as his perception of Alex’s “abandonment” of him. Indeed, she chose to remain in the seventeenth century where she landed, and by the time Isaac falls through once more, she has raised a family, homesteaded in the colonies and seen too much in the passage of her “adopted” time.

Initially, Isaac’s appearance is welcome to those familiar with the saga, for he has not played much of a role in the previous installments, apart from his one “visit,” although Alex does guiltily think of him from time to time. But even new readers fall in quickly, given Belfrage’s masterful shaping of dialogue and events that fill in pertinent bits of information. Isaac is a sympathetic character and from the get-go, readers follow him hopefully.

As these events play out, Alex is experiencing a separation of her own. After years of feuding between her husband, Matthew, and his younger brother, Luke—often with terrible consequences—a truce of sorts has been called and the couple prepare to leave their colonial home, taking only a portion of their family back to Scotland. Having been forced out of their country in the wake of religious persecution, she now had grown roots in her new land and leaving it, and her children, is devastating.

Meeting up with Isaac once more, as well as returning to Scotland, produces mixed feelings within Alex. She must face her guilt and work through the confrontations with her confused and unhappy son, as well as the long-ago losses and compounded homesickness when she sees how far they have grown from Hillview, Matthew’s ancestral home. Her husband begins to bond more closely with Luke, who appears to be trying to sort out their past, and Belfrage give us greater glimpses into Luke’s life as well as his changing perceptions of his world and the individuals who populate it. Her treatment of the younger Graham brother is especially skillfully woven because we are kept in a questioning state: “Exactly how hard do old habits die?” Just when we think things have changed, something else occurs, bringing our assumptions into question, though knowing answers could come from any direction.

The author deals with historical reality with the skillful dexterity she utilizes in the preceding seven books. Religious persecution—in the colonies as well as Scotland—battles and factual historical figures all play a role she does not whitewash, even to the detriment of Alex’s relationship with Matthew. Belfrage moves us between eras and places with a hand so adroit we not only fall into the story, but also follow along with baited breath, around every obstacle and with an eye out for anything that might come between our players and their goals.

Life being what it is in seventeenth-century Scotland, adversity and heartbreak are constant companions. Even here, what characters see and how they see it, wraps us into their destinies, makes us care about them all the more. At times they make the best of it, while on other occasions, not so much: “The night was bitterly cold, the stars strewn like shards of crushed glass on a velvet background.” But so often even the bitter language of their love rises within a bouquet of poetry, reminding us, and perhaps them, that life is too precious not to move forward.

While the story opens with Isaac and moves at one point for a long spell back to Maryland, it really is Alex and Matthew’s tale, with the degrees of separation surrounding them: they are the nucleus, and they move forward with heartbreak and laughter, sharing the story of their loves and their losses, accepting some realities, while left wondering about others. At their now-advanced ages, Matthew and Alex begin to wonder about future Grahams. “Was there anything left of them in the twenty-first century? Would there be someone living here, in their place, and would that person’s name be Graham?” Given the strange way they came together, how exactly would this work? Even this element of the story unites characters with readers, as Belfrage weaves time together in such a fashion that we recognize ourselves in those who came before, and how their choices affect the lives we live today.

Having completed this last of the eight novels of The Graham Saga, it is perhaps easy to overlook—this is how seamlessly Belfrage writes us all together—that the re-reading of the series sets us all upon a circular sort of journey, much like the one Alex possibly faces, when her seventeenth-century self passes on and time marches forward until her original era dawns, and she is born again. Will she re-live it all in the same way we will when we go back to the beginning?

To Catch a Falling Star ties together some loose ends, answers some questions as its creator draws the Grahams’ story to a close. Alex recalls her first night with Matthew on a Scottish moor, and Jacob, her young son, gone too soon. She caresses a carved wooden infant, much as she did the one Matthew had made for her on that moor, as she agonized over her feelings for the baby Isaac. As we—reader and Alex alike—recall the start of her journey, she and Matthew are passing into a new phase of life. “Colour was returning to their world, greys morphing back to greens and browns, reds and blues.” One can’t help but recall the colors Isaac sees just before his second passage, as one world spills into another, both then and now.

It is a difficult moment, for all the remembering, and new questions, about future as well as past, and knowing this is the end of the long journey once embarked upon with such pleasure, aware there was so much more ahead. Alex herself used to say she would make the same choice—to stay—if she were to do it all over again. For all the heartbreak, grief and terror, there is also immense joy, love and bonding of souls in these tales, these “desert island books,” as another author refers to them, and like Alex, we would do it all over again as well. And we will.  

Anna Belfrage has so generously offered a Kindle copy of To Catch a Falling Star for one lucky winner. For your chance to win, simply comment below OR at this review's Facebook thread, located here.  

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See Louise Rule's sister review for 
To Catch a Falling Star 

Anna Belfrage can be found on Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, on her website and at her fantabulous blog, where you can learn much more about the author, her projects, the Grahams and her own world.

Louise Reviews To Catch a Falling Star by Anna Belfrage

Would you like to win a FREE COPY of To Catch a Falling Star? See how below!
Drawing June 10

The drawing has been held and a winner announced at Facebook.
Please see new reviews for more chances!

To Catch a Falling Star - Book eight in The Graham Saga by Anna Belfrage

Have you ever read a series, and at the end of it, wondered just what did happen to so-and-so? Have you been frustrated about not knowing? Have the loose ends been left wafting carelessly?

Anna Belfrage's Graham Saga won't leave you feeling this way. I have read many series: more often than not they have been between four and eight books long, some longer, some less; The Graham Saga consists of eight books. Each book can be read in isolation from the others; however, Belfrage joins them all together in such a way that the reader is not left wondering about the reason why that character, for example, is behaving in such-and-such a way. There are no loose ends. Each end gradually gets tied to its fellow as the story progresses through all the books. There is no hurried joining of long forgotten threads at the end, and there is no wondering about the why, what or who.

Belfrage's first book in the series, A Rip in the Veil, is the first step into the journey of Alexandra Ruth Lind. It's a journey that will take the reader through many highs and lows, twisting the readers' nerves to their nth degree, and then releasing the reader to breathe again. 

Belfrage's first book begins:

The radio died first. Halfway through Enrique Iglesias' 'Hero' there was a burst of static and the display went black. The dashboard lights gave up one by one, the steering wheel locked, the engine coughed, and the BMW glided to a stop by a crossroads.

So begins our journey alongside Alex Lind. The jeopardy hook has been cast and the reader, from the very beginning, is holding their breath.

As the reader journeys through each book, and it is a journey, they become deeply acquainted with the ever growing family Graham. These characters are written in such detail, such dimension, that the reader cannot help but become involved, albeit from the side-lines. There is a deftness of language that Belfrage invests in her characters. The modern language of Alex Lind, for example, combines with the seventeenth century language of her husband, Matthew Graham. It is interesting when the juxtaposition of the twentieth/twenty-first century language abuts the language of the seventeenth century. One prime example, which is first evident in book one, is the constant use of the word okay, by Alex. This is a complete unknown word in the seventeenth century.

The Online Etymology Dictionary states:

1839, only survivor of a slang fad in Boston and New York c. 1838-9 for abbreviations of common phrases with deliberate, jocular misspellings (such as K.G. for "no go," as if spelled "know go;" N.C. for "'nuff ced;" K.Y. for "know yuse"). In the case of O.K., the abbreviation is of "Oll Korrect."

There is a perpetual use of this word throughout the entire series, seeping into the family's own language, and becomes a part of them. The same applies with another twentieth century word that Belfrage uses: teenager in book four, A Newfound Land. As with okay, not at first seeming anachronistic, until Belfrage has Matthew Graham questioning the word which has been used.

The Online Etymology Dictionary states:

Teenager (n), also teen ager, teen-ager; 1922, derived noun from teenage (q.v.). The earlier word for this was teener, attested in American English from 1894, and teen had been used as a noun to mean "teen-aged person" 1818, though this was not common before twentierh century.

When I came to read the final book in Belfrage's Graham Saga, I could not imagine not having another book to look forward to. After drawing in a steadying breath, I started reading. I knew, from the previous books, that this would also be a white knuckle ride for the Grahams.

Titles for books are so important, as I am sure you will agree. To Catch a Falling Star had me wondering what this title could possibly mean. The previous seven book titles became evident in the reading. The title for the final book, however, had me wondering. Was I going to read that one of my favourite characters had come to the end of their life? Maybe. Was there going to be dire circumstances through which the characters would have to travel? Well, yes, as always, the Graham's lives were fraught with highs and lows, peace, and trouble, also the continuing conflicts with religious beliefs. To Catch a Falling Star is the perfect title for the final book, and I only truly felt this once I had read the final chapter. Throughout the book there is a subtle tying of lives to their roots, a bringing together of each strand so that it can be joined to its fellow. The seamless nature in which Belfrage accomplishes this task, for surely it must be a task, is breath-taking.

Belfrage confronts many ideals within her books, such as, religion, race, and slavery, to mention but a few. These subjects are not handled tentatively, but with great force and assurance, bringing to the forefront all that each subject entails. These have been woven into the books, not as a demonstration that Belfrage knows much about these subjects, for surely she does, it's more that she has highlighted, in an erudite fashion, how these subjects affect each and every one of us, not just then, back in the seventeenth century, but even now. The past does inform and influence the future. Belfrage tackles issues that we are aware of, but in the reading, with that issue placed upon a character, it becomes more personal. The issue becomes implanted, and for me at least, lead to my reading more about those issues when I had finished each book. To say that Belfrage tugs at our psyche is an understatement. The issues become the force which drives the story forward, from the first through to the last book.

To Catch a Falling Star has the most profound moments between father and daughter, between sister and sister, and between sister and husband, and not least, between mother and child. The profundity of Belfrage's writing has laid before me, as a writer, that there is most assuredly an accountability to the reader. That accountability is to write the best book that is possible to write, and to give the reader a worthwhile experience.

With The Graham Saga, there can be no definitive ending, after all, the family live on. So, their future becomes speculative, and with the knowledge of the books which have gone before, the reader can, with some educated guessing, imagine what befalls each one; or can they? Even then, however, I am sure you will agree, if you have travelled through all eight books, there is a bright hope that Belfrage will concede to entertain us with more stories of The Graham Saga. There is a saying that it is always better to leave the party early. I would hope, most sincerely, however, that Anna Belfrage will honour us with an encore.

The Graham Saga:

A Rip in the Veil; Like Chaff in the Wind; The Prodigal Son; Newfound Land; Serpents in the Garden; Wither Thou Goest; and concluding with To Catch a Falling Star.

Anna Belfrage has so generously offered a FREE COPY of To Catch a Falling Star in Kindle format for one lucky winner. To get your name in the hat, simply comment below or at this review's Facebook thread, located here. 

We will draw a name from commenters 

on June 10. Good luck!

You can read more about Anna Belfrage on her website on Facebook, on Twitter and on her blog.

Louise E. Rule is the author of Future Confronted and can be found on Facebook, Twitter, and on her blog.