You generally don’t see very many novels written up in The Well-read Naturalist. Part of this is due to the fact that after a uni degree in English literature, I went a bit off fiction, and when I returned some years later, most of the novels I read tend to be a century or two old and are not particularly applicable to the purpose of this publication. Part is also due to the fact that of those that I see that do take some manner of natural history as their theme, well… my primary editorial rule applies: if I don’t think it’s worthy of recommendation, I simply won’t write about it at all.
However of all the novels that do come my way for review, one in particular very much caught my attention: Susan M. Gaines‘ Accidentals. Partly a story of family secrets, partly one of Cold War ghosts, partly a romance, and partly a tale of a nation’s politically turbulent past, all wrapped together and richly interwoven with birdwatching and explorations into the extraordinary natural history of Uruguay, this was a novel that I had to take up in order to discover what the author had created with such a remarkable palette of possibilities.
It begins very well indeed. How does it finish? I will, of course, let you know.
