Yesterday was perfect for a flying visit from Eowyn Ivey, author of the phenomenal The Snow Child. Eowyn and her husband Sam charmed us all, first in Biggar where Chris McCosh and Sue of Atkinson Pryce Books with Eowyn's publishers Headline hosted a sellout literary lunch then at the Moffat House hotel for a 'conversation' and book signing. The sky was blue and filled with snow by turns, as if winter and spring were battling it out. Someone said pensively after Eowyn, Sam, and Headline's publicists Samantha from London and Gillian from Glasgow had departed that some day we would all look back on the evening much as if we had met Dan Brown before The Da Vinci Code hit the big time. In my view, The Snow Child is, with all due respect to Dan Brown, a far better book than The Da Vinci Code. It already reads like an enduring classic with all the necessary ingredients: a haunting predicament - which Ivey does not seek to solve glibly - of a couple who set themselves a huge challenge in the face of the pain of a lost child and win from the wilderness a kind of victory. Life, with its sorrows and moments of heart-warming friendship is played out against the entirely convincing backdrop of Alaska's savage beauty. Moffat did itself proud with a very good turnout, there was a real buzz in the air as we lined up to meet Eowyn to get our books signed. Many thanks, too, to Chris and Sue who quite literally went the extra mile by bringing the books. We are looking forward to future collaborations, but The Snow Child will remain something very special for us all.
I am pegging out my new garden today!
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