The magical story of a floating circus and two young women in search of a home.
The sea has flooded the earth. North lives on a circus boat, floating between the scattered islands that remain. She dances with her beloved bear, while the rest of the crew trade dazzling and death-defying feats for food from the islanders. However, North has a secret that could capsize her life with the circus.
Callanish lives alone in her house in the middle of the ocean, with only the birds and the fish for company. As penance for a terrible mistake, she works as a gracekeeper, tending the graves of those who die at sea. What drove her from home is also what pulls her towards North.
When a storm creates a chance meeting between the two girls, their worlds change. They are magnetically drawn to one another, and the promise of a new life. But the waters are treacherous, and the tide is against them.
Imagine Earth, 100 years from now. Humans have decimated the planet and the seas have risen until there are only small patches of land here and there. The military enforces a sort of martial law, as much as it can, traveling from island to island and boarding boats of those who live at sea. Prison is not uncommon for small violations, and bribery is rampant. And as is typically the way of humans, even those who live at sea and those who live at land divide into factions and have a love/hate relationship with each other. Within this world, people survive as they can. Two people, a dampling and a landlocker, are about to have their destinies intertwine in a way that neither could ever have imagined - and both will be forever changed.
"The Grace Keepers" is not a book with action-packed pages. It moves along in such a way that one can imagine the Fates weaving the cloth that bound the characters together. The descriptions are lovely, and the characters are well-developed during the course of the story. Most of all, it manages to demonstrate how the old adage of "The more things change, the more they stay the same." is accurate even with the changed reality of life during this unnamed time.
Kirsty Logan has written a lovely book, about love, friendship, regret and hope. It is definitely worth reading, and would make a fabulous book club choice, just for the conversations it would inspire.
