Of The Ninth Verse

Hi Ms Reynolds
looks like this is going to be an emotional rollercoaster I've backed it after reading just the first chapter as I found your writing flowed beautifully and is drawing me in to the drama, I notice your sentences are slightly long, do you think this is a welsh trait as I have been accused of doing exactly the same but can't seem to get out of the habit (maybe that's why I am enjoying your book so much as my style may be similar to yours - lots of Hwyl I expect.) Here in South wales we say Tad for dad and Tadgui and Mamgui for grandad and grandma isn't it strange how the dialect changes anyway dda iawn
Sheila

The Ninth Verse. I read on, after over five months away - how did the time fly?
I take notes as I read, but dont pretend to be an expert.

Chs.4-5. I had to re-read Ch.4. to refresh my memory. You write beautifully, full of soft emotion, and I am inside Anwen's mind as she crouches at the foot of the stairs.
A tiny nit - you have two 'turned's in the last paragraph.

Ch.6. A striking metaphor - taking the sheet that time sat upon and shaking it and throwing dates and hours haphazard to the wind.
A dreamy, slow moving interlude, with touches of forbidden thoughts.

Ch.7. That word 'just' jars somewhat. Perhaps you could say it was easier for his mother to go alone?
Somehow, you manage to introduce the authorial voice, referring to their parents, without distancing the reader. Skilful.
I'm relieved to get back to Idwal's reality at the end of the chapter - was becoming rather satiated with all that sensation and emotion.

Ch.8. I wonder if you might think of breaking up some of those long heart-rending paragraphs, perhaps by introducing scenes and dialogue to intersperse the obsessive thoughts? It might create an effective contrast - but it's only my opinion, and it's your book!

Ch.9. This chapter I found a bit lighter and it flows better, but I feel I'm being drawn inexorably down into Anwen's dismal predicament. I'm sure there must be light at the end of the tunnel later in the story, but perhaps a hint or two of brighter things wouldnt go amiss at this stage?

Your writing is impeccable, and full of feeling and emotion. Poetic prose, and literary fiction at its best.
But I would have to take this intensive richness in small doses, to fully appreciate and savour its worth.

Jane (Breath of Africa)

Hello A.C-

book--the ninth verse-

brooding cover, good selection, for the story inside--

on reading six chapters and some chunks more; i found this book to be dark, mysterious, engrossing and intriguing..
I could sense the smell, the atmosphere and the happenings on the rural farm in Wales here.
yes, just one brilliant literary read indeed.
' a dark cloud formed over the mountain and hovered over the valley'
Everything line coming across as so authentic and real - the swim in the water together written with great tact here. and of course back in the first chapter, your create a brooding scene that moves on from page to page.

Riveting and well crafted- this book of yours has to do well and in my opinion will reach the desk

good luck- six stars
tom bye dublin ireland'
book- from hugs to kisses'
obliged if you would glance at mine,chapter 39 very dark as is 12 in a different manner. thanks

I backed this because its original, beautifully written and controversial. Can't wait to read more

You write beautifully, in a way I always wished I could. It's the kind of writing you feel as you read. The story itself is different and emotional. Your characters nestle their way into my mind and even now, I'm thinking of them. This belongs on my shelf and I'll get it up in about a week (that's how far behind I am!)

Stars for now. This book is amazing, truly.
Missy

Your writing is beautiful. I was entranced by it the whole time I was reading, you have great talent and I'm mindnumbingly jealous. I think I fell in love with your creative and unique similies and descriptions, I can't wait to continue reading.

This is powerfully written, each word made to count. Totally absorbing. Your writing forces the reader to go slow, which brings out so much more meaning and depth. Thank you for writing of this quality. I am surprised that this seems to have been here for a long time..perhaps because it is quiet, careful and treads lightly. Highly rated and on my WL. Fran Macilvey, "Trapped"

There's a lot of books on here that put themselves forward as 'literary fiction,' when they are not. I'd say you chose well. You're interested in words and the sound they make, and the images they conjour, as much as you are interested in telling us this story. At first, I wondered if it wasn't going to be too much poetry and tumbled scenes, but you managed it. If It was a film, I'd see the first chapter in slow motion - the car far away with the delayed sound, the grandfather taking her hand. You repeated some words close together - 'an antihill........ as an anthill..'
and 'settled on the grass, and settled her in the boat of his lap.' for eg, and I wondered why you''d done that, but then I decided it fit the rythmn.
You also handled the sexual elements between them just right - avoided totally that ghastly problem of how to describe things, and the act itself, in fact, it's probably the best handled I've seen for a long time - and not just on here - that's a feat in itself. I've read most of it I think - I just have to catch up on the middle! And I'm impressed. I'd say it's one of the rare ones that I'd buy if it was in the shops. You can have my hardly ever handed out (only twice) full complement of stars (and I know you don't like people saying that - but then I seldom do except when I mean it as I do here.) You will also be on my shelf soon.
Cariad.

Beautiful, flowing, expository writing. Poetic, genius, the power of the pen. All of that rolled into this piece of art. All of us would like to write like this; some are not able to reveal their inner desire to do so. Some are chained by religion and morality, what is right or not.This work ought ot be published. Please read mine too. Very different.

Dear Reynolds, you have a simple yet wonderful style of writing. The cuteness and innocence that you were able to characterize Anwen with in the first chapter is just simply amazing. I have been looking into the Weekly top rated books for a long time now but this has been the first time that I found out a truly wonderful novel. I have backed your book and will keep giving it the support it needs. My best wishes!!!

Jasweer

Dear A.L

Your first chapter blew me away. Its woven with such love and infinite care. I could feel all the emotions working their way through the little family, like fireflies lighting them up from just written words. Beautifully crafted piece. A warmth that comes from having loved this story a long while before penning it down. Effortless movement between scenes, and a flair for natural dialogue. This will do very well, and I wish you every success.

I am going to back this book when my bookshelf has a vacant space next, for now its on my watchlist.

Regards
Samragi

I had time to read your Chapter 1, Anna, and I'm left deeply impressed. You show the world around Anwen, through the girl's eyes, so vividly I can totally visualize it. Anwen's attitude to her brother changes once she sets her eyes upon him - that moment is perhaps the pivotal point in her life, now she's drawn to him and resorts to all means to spend as much time with Idwal. The passage about largeness and smallness caught my attention - great observations. Well done. Sometime soon hope to return to Of The Ninth Verse.

Kindest regards,
Ivan

The Ninth Verse. Reading the pitches, I'm not sure that the subject matter is quite my cup of tea - but here goes.

Ch.1. Who is taid - or is that a typo? Oh - is that her father... my ignorance diverts my attention from the beautiful way you show Anwen's reaction to her brother's birthing, and the way she wanted to squirm free and run back to the house.
No - taid is not her father ... and now there's a nain - are they her grandparents?
Love grew like a pearl - what wonderful imagery.

Chs. 2 & 3. Poetic prose, and a skilful, smooth transition from baby- to adulthood within two chapters. You write beautifully. Introducing sinister hints in to the paradise of youth. 'She put a scone thick with cream into her mouth and let it melt into her.' Full of metaphoric nuances. 'The intention to ask flopped over inside her and died.'

Ch.4. I cant stop. An idyllic setting, then near tragedy, and a sinister awakening. I am carried away by your writing.

Maxi-starred and onto my ever-growing w/list for further readings.
Jane (Breath of Africa).

Backed and starred! Skater

Fantastic story, if you're from rural North Wales then you'll be able to sympathise with the mentality of the people in the book, main characters and supports alike. I've watched and read this story come alive from the beginning and I marvel at the author's ability to remain motivated and focussed on the difficult subjects that arise through the story. I love the way the words all flow together to make the story fluid and when I have been reading parts of the story out loud it has tripped easily off the tongue and sounds as good in the open as it does in my head.

Wonderfully written. The first chapter is amazing. Just seeing a toddler adapting to the new baby in such a sweet and wonderous perspective. :) It's just the kind of thing that warms your hard. You have a nice, loving tone to your writing that seeps through your work. There was thought and compassion put into this peice. I enjoyed it :)

Neicy

I wrote a comment last week, but somehow I think it did not copy. I have read a few chapters of your book and I was really hooked. The craft is addictive; the voice is compelling and compassionate. I was immediately drawn into the novel. I was very impressed, this is a finished product and it reads like a novel ready to be on an Ed’s desk. My only comment is that I did wonder if it was credible for a two year old to remember all of this? I do understand that the narrator is older now, and when looking back a memory can be mix with imagination and reflection, but I imagine this little two year old (and I worked with children for many years) and I could not help but think she was too young to recall things with so much maturity (even if the maturity comes from an adult looking back now) and details. Nevertheless I really love it. Good luck with everything, I have put you on my watchlist with the intention of putting you on my shelf as soon as I get the chance, Melissa

Hi Anna,
I'm putting this on my bookshelf because I think it's one of the best things I've seen on this website. Excellent writing. Have you read A Spell of Winter by Helen Dunmore? Similar subject, and she also writes lovely prose.
One thing I don't like about this site is all the creeping and arse-licking that goes on, so I won't expect you to look at my page just because I'm backing you, though I don't really know how else one gets people to read one's work.
Cheers anyway, Miro.

Beautiful. I love the prose, so lyrical that the reader feels he is being lulled into the tale. To me it recaptures how I imagine the old storytelling rhythm was. It's a difficult story but you bring out so well and convincingly in a modern setting, the feel of it is definitely old. It's on my WL and when I get room I'll put it on my shelf. Kristin, Selkie Dreams

Wow, this is a very beautifully crafted title, with a flow that is as natural as nature... This title makes me feel so moved, and torn in all directions - What a thrill.

Your prose comes to the front, with your descriptive skill, will make all readers gasp.

Wishing you every success - BACKED!

stevew
The Ultimate/The Authors Cut

Anna,

I have backed your two novels, OF THE NINTH VERSE and ANGELWINGS, as I said I would. Now If you would please take a look at my two novels DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS and MY GENTLEMAN FRIEND, for a possible backing, it would be appreciated. Good luck and happy writing!

Dwain-Thomas

Flowing, seemingly effortless prose, lilting and beautifully descriptive without ever getting in the way of ‘the story’, steeped in original metaphor and simile. You have a powerful sense of time and place which totally absorbed me; I was a guest at the party, a walker in the fields, a victim of small town mutterings. A difficult subject but you handle it sensitively and convey with eloquence the conflict and moral struggle involved in attempting to reconcile an illicit relationship.

Amongst my favourites:

Chapter 1
The boat of his lap

And Anwen touched him, and was lost…

Milk pooled in his open gape

Chapter 2

Oh, the jealousy if he smiled for anyone but her. His smile was a live, flitting thing, a bird darting toward a morsel of food and then retreating before it was caught. She would have caught it, in butterfly nets, in spider’s webs, in jars with the lids screwed tight. She would have kept it only for her to lay eyes upon, as her own special prize, as her beautiful captive. His smile brightened his eyes and focussed his long, lithe body and made his hair glint with threads of gold – and when it appeared she wanted to turn it on herself like the beam from an angle-poise lamp, and stand sublime in its warmth and brightness, and let the rest of the world shiver in the shade.

(and thank you, thank you so much for the ‘ss’ in focussed)

Chapter 3
As content as a boulder in a stream

Chapter 4
The morning was thin and pale, and Anwen’s eyes were crusted closed at first with the remnants of tears and with tiredness. Her face felt as if it was veiled with a thin, dried wash of salt, and she lay still in her bed at first, listening to the sounds of the house, and wondering just what it was that had provoked the emotion of last night.

I noticed just a few typos as I read, one of which was ‘Northern Island’ instead of ‘Northern Ireland’

I loved the Lord’s Prayer sequence with the clever use of ‘Amen’.

The sun would be a towel for them, once it had gathered its strength.

Two bodies cannot occupy the same space simultaneously

Chapter 5

Paragraph beginning ‘Sleep hovered on the edge of the room’

Chapter 6
Addictions were the hardest things to shift, harder than blood stains or bad habits or unnecessary layers of fat about the hips.

Chapter 8
Anwen took her feelings and laced a thin carapace over them, and they watched, and thought, and felt through their fragile window, but they did not speak, and they did not break through.

Chapter 9
Light and shade, light and shade. At the edge of the bracken the leaves striped her arms with shadows, and the smell of them was thick in her nostrils. Further in she could lose herself under the surface of a growing sea, crouching down between the thin stalks, leaves like octopus tentacles tangling overhead and cutting out her view of the sky. The light became warm and green, and she crawled across ground that was earthen and starved of other light, moving silently, invisible to the outside world.

Chapter 10
But she was skimming the surface of a life that was not hers.

She belonged to the thick-fleeced sheep and to the stolid, staring cattle, and to the slate-roofed houses that huddled against the hills with their dark-stoned walls.

Chapter 11
Question: ‘and she was tired of apologising to him through her words and her actions, and tired of trying to make her forgive him.’ Should this be ‘trying to make him forgive her’?

She looked at him, and wanted him to read in her eyes the plea of hold me, hold me so tight I don’t have to hold myself anymore – but he did not read it in her eyes.He moved his feet briefly on the carpet, and eyed the dog, and said, ‘Would a cup of tea help?’A floor collapsed inside her – a silent collapse of floor onto floor onto floor like the inside of a block of flats falling apart and leaving the superstructure intact, but hollow. The collapse did not even make her want to cry – it just left her chest empty and cavernous, and she said in an arid voice, ‘Yes, please.’

Typo ? ‘Yes, I spoke to your mother before – told here I was willing to stay or go as she liked – and she said that she would very much like me to stay.’ Should this be ‘told her’ rather than ‘told here’?

I did not realise when I started reading that you already have work published, but it comes as no surprise; this will surely follow.

Anna,
The fine detail of your prose captured my imagination, as I followed the path "Of the Ninth Verse" had taken in developing its characters and their coming of age. The lyrical quality of the dialogue added to the general ambiance of the experience. Thank you for this brilliant treatment of incest, the way you had events unfolding so that Idwal and Anwen had no recourse but to give in to its grip. I'm deeply into the story, awaiting the next chapters.

Kenneth Edward Lim
The Nortth Korean

The last two graphs of the first section are vivid and moving. I can recall my own father's yellow-brown nicotine stained fingers. But for me the best dabis undoubtably the 'boat of his lap'. Wording such as '...his lips spoke of the sheep and the promise of new lambs....' skips along quite beautifully.

I also like 'what kind of creature had to be kept in a wooden cage' and the notion of A being 'distracted with a purpose'. I recall jackdaws from my own childhood also.

Dipping into your two stories it is this one which bosses my eye. The title has something to do with it. But I found that I was totally taken with the ant-hill similie. I really like that, even though it is actually a bit sinister to imagine a bump seething with ants. But the notion of the bump being a mysterious threat fascinates. I also remember having nightmares about ants when I was a child. Perhaps there is something sinister in the nature of ants, their speed, their number, their legs, their bite.

I'm not sure why I even read this--perhaps a hangover from my illicit reading of "Flowers in the Attic" in 6th grade (oh, how naughty!) -- as I'm not enamoured of incest as a plot. However...this was...beautiful. As an older sister myself, I identified with Anwen, and while I've never wanted to have sex with my brother, I have felt that proud, wistful, love. I have thought to myself, "Here is the perfect man, and I helped shape him." I have also hauled hay, and boy, did I identify with your description of that experience. You have a remarkable gift for description, for getting to the heart of something and pulling out the emotions attached to it. Hauling hay is a joyous exertion. At the end of the day, there are few other jobs that give you such a feeling of well-being and accomplishment, as when you contemplate your golden stacks of summer-smelling hay and know that when winter comes, you're prepared. Having said all that, I am most disappointed by the fact that you tempted me in, promising me a tale of forbidden love, then you seduced me into feeling for your characters, and then...you stopped. Where is the rest of this story!!!! I can't put it on my bookshelf, because I just don't back incomplete works (just an arbitrary rule I made up for myself), but I will definitely give it six stars. Very well-written!

Beautiful writing, poetic in places; your use of metaphors is impressive (but like someone's already commented, just one at a time would be more effective). I am more than happy to back this. Good luck.
Vall
Midwyf

this pure writing; narrative ia descriptive, dialogue effective...l shall back this book...6 stars******
read SEASONS...

Hi, Anna!

The premise of your story promises forbidden love, shocks and exciting romance, lol. I’m sure it will be an excellent story overall. I’ve read through the first chapter for now, and made a few notes for you.

Notes on chapter one:

1) You state in the opening paragraph that his birth is ONE of her earliest memories and the beginning of her memory was the beginning of his life. Wouldn’t it be better to say his birth was her EARLIEST memory, rather than just one of them?
2) As a non-Welsh speaker, I was confused the first time the word ‘taid’ was used in narrative. Can you somehow define it in narrative so it’s not confusing?
3) Would a two-and-a-half year old child remember details about cattle production, lol? Maybe the pirate stuff, but the rest of the detail is a bit much through the pov of a toddler.
4) ‘what kind of creature has to be kept in a wooden cage?’ -> wonderful thought! :)
5) ‘Let’s see what you’ve got’ sounds a little like he doesn’t care and it’s nowt to do with him.
6) In the sentence that begins ‘then he turned and saw her,’ I got completely lost about who was the subject and object of that sentence and the following one. It’s not clear to me at all. The problem, as i realised later, is that I’d assumed ‘taid’ was Welsh for father, and couldn’t understand how he was in two plaees at once.
7) Her mother, the planet that she orbited...you have a fantastic metaphor building here, but spoil it with the dingy, which makes it a mixed metaphor. It would be stronger if you kept to the original mother as the planet and brother as a new moon/satellite.
8) Anwen had not even noticed her nain... in the following sentence you have two uses of ‘as she’ close to one another.
9) ...the kind of gravity that only a baby can possess-> I think, can generate, would sound better.
10) He grew like a young tree... again you follow this up with a completely different metaphor. Your comparatives would be stronger if you didn’t mix them, placing one straight after the other to show exactly the same thing.
11) Love grew like a kernel... again, you follow this up with a second metaphor expressing the same thing. Your metaphors are wonderful, but you should choose one for each event you’re describing and stick with it.
12) The chapter doesn’t end with any kind of question or cliffhanger. I think you need to find a stronger hook for the end of your first chapter so that readers are encouraged to read on.

Anyway, I enjoyed this and am sure others will too.

If you have time, I’d love your thoughts on my own book, Sally & Jack. I’ve recently updated the first few chapters in response to reviews I’ve received here on Authonomy and now want new readers to take a look, make constructive comments, and give me an anonymous star rating. (Backing would be nice, but isn’t expected, lol). Thank you!

I wish you all the best with your book.

Chris :-)

Hello there,

I've read the first 4 chapters of your work and wanted to leave you a comment or two in the hope they might be useful.

I chose your book to read because it deals with incest, which my own does as well, so I guess I wanted to check out the competition! A bit rude of me maybe....

I think you have a really good way with description, the life of the farm and the ways of very little children were put across really rather well. I liked that you didn't over describe or feel the need to explain details (for example the use of Welsh words and titles) - you let the reader work things out and do not patronise them.

I did think that perhaps the structure of the tale could be rearranged to perhaps have some drama at the beginning, not that birth isn't dramatic, but I think - and maybe this is my own desire for impact coming out - that as we know some incest is coming that the beautiful images and details get a bit lost in page turning to get to the action.

I also thought that the feel of the characters was a bit lacking. I'm not sure exactly how I would suggest you change this, maybe more about their rooms, postures, or another person's point of view.

But overall this is one of the better things I have read on here and I think you obviously have a very good way with words and I expect I'll see you on a bookshelf one day. Well, not you personally, but your novel.

All the best.