The Severed Knot by Cryssa Bazos

Shortlisted for Book of the Month

"Ms Bazos’s writing is flawless, with wonderful descriptions and spine-tingling dialogue expertly founded on meticulous research."

AMAZON UK
AMAZON US 
AMAZON CA

Hauntingly Beautiful.

Let me state this here and now. Severed Knot is a fabulous follow-up to Ms Bazos’s award-winning debut novel, Traitor’s Knot, and if possible, I enjoyed this book even more than the first. From the very beginning, you are swept into a world of warfare and adversity, huge challenges and heartbreak with two compelling characters, Mairead and Iain. Each brings their own story with them, heart-wrenching and captivating. Together, they are unforgettable. 

As victims of the English Civil War, their lives rapidly succumb to the horrors of deportation, and as indentured slaves, Iain and Mairead find themselves helpless and hopeless on the hostile landscape of seventeenth-century Barbados. Ms Bazos’s vivid writing draws you immediately into a world as foreign and harsh as can be possibly imagined. The story evolves into a devastating account of servitude, and with our hearts in our mouths, we travel with Mairead and Iain as they fight to survive. 

Running like a ribbon of light through the beautiful descriptive writing emerges an attraction that pulls and tugs at the heartstrings, and flares into a love story that endures the horrors of their imprisonment. Together, Iain and Mairead begin to hope they may find a way to escape and find their way home again, and as their spirits strengthen, our hopes rise with them.

Ms Bazos’s writing is flawless, with wonderful descriptions and spine-tingling dialogue expertly founded on meticulous research.  Her descriptions embrace all the senses, where you can hear the poignant strains of Mairead’s violin and suffer the unbearable heat of a plantation sugar cane field. From the first page to the last, we travel with Iain and Mairead in their hearts and souls, hoping they can find their way home and to a love they both deserve.

This is a story that is rarely told, of the thousands of Irish and Scottish indentured slaves that were shipped to the colonies in the mid-seventeenth century. Ms Bazos writes of this heartbreaking period in history with empathy and passion and the result is a novel of depth, breadth and hauntingly beautiful moments. 

© Elizabeth St John

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Today In History

1815. The Duke of Wellington

won the Battle of Waterloo

The Battle of Waterloo
by William Sadler

* * * 

1942 Sir Paul McCartney was born

Interesting fact:

he was auditioned twice to become a choirboy 

and his first instrument was a trumpet.

He is a talented singer, but even he would have struggled 

to sing and play the trumpet!

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