The Sorrow Stone by J.A. McLachlan
Reviewed by Melanie Marttila
McLachlan is an excellent storyteller, and The Sorrow Stone did not disappoint. While this novel is a departure from the adult and young adult science fiction she published previously, fantastic elements infuse it.
The Sorrow Stone was winner of the Royal Palm Literary Award for Historical Fiction.
The premise of The Sorrow Stone comes from the Middle Ages, when people believed a mother mourning her child could “sell her sorrow” by selling a nail from her child’s coffin to a traveling peddler. Celeste is inconsolable over her infant son’s death and her husband has sent her to a convent to recover.
Finding no other solace, she sneaks into the mausoleum, pries a nail from her child’s coffin, and runs to the market in search of a peddler to sell it to. The merchant she finds is canny and insists that she include her ruby wedding ring with the nail in exchange for his coin.
In the wake of the transaction, Celeste not only suffers from amnesia, but she’s also lost her capacity to feel compassion. Her lady’s maid and the nuns of the convent she’s been sent to for her recovery all think there’s something strange about her, but she convinces them that it’s only her grief.
She must get her ring back, she realizes, or her husband will set her aside. So, she decides to embark on a pilgrimage as cover for her search for the peddler.
The only thing she’s certain of at first is that something terrible happened that sent her to the convent. Because she can no longer feel the love she once felt for her dead child or her husband, she knows the something terrible involves her infant’s death. She can only assume that her life had been one of cruelty and pain for it to have resulted in her current state of health. Celeste uses logic, skewed because of her lack of feeling, to try to unravel the mystery.
Afraid of revealing her compromised state to anyone, Celeste engages is some radical behaviour for a 12th century French noblewoman. She travels with only her maid as a companion, she seeks the means to become financially independent, and she tries to track down the peddler with whom she traded her wedding ring. Her actions in pursuit of these goals verge on cruel.
For his part, the pragmatic merchant Jean finds himself plagued by unwanted compassion. He wants to rid himself of Celeste’s ring and the emotion attached to it, but his every attempt to do so ends in failure and worse. After he recovers from a robbery and assault that nearly results in his death, Jean returns home to find his bad luck extends to his family. His daughter is seriously ill and may die if he doesn’t find the means to set things right.
The outcome of these intertwined journeys involves a mystery, betrayal, and greed on multiple levels. As Celeste’s husband pursues her, thriller elements come into play. Can Celeste reclaim her ring before her husband catches up to her and finds out what she’s done? And when her memory of the night her son died finally returns to her, Celeste finds herself trapped with his murderer.
The Sorrow Stone is a complex story about the importance of achieving balance between logic and emotion, the destruction of greed, and the revelatory and healing powers of love.
About the Author
J.A. (Jane Ann) McLachlan was born in Toronto, Canada. She started writing stories when she was five years old, and has been reading literary fiction, science fiction, and historical fiction in equal measure all her life. She received her B.A. in English Literature from York University and her M.A. in Canadian Literature from Carleton University. Before becoming a full-time writer, she taught at Conestoga College.
About the Reviewer
Melanie Marttila (she/her) is an #ActuallyAutistic SFF author-in-progress, writing poetry and tales of hope in the face of adversity. Her poetry has appeared in The /tƐmz/ Review, Polar Starlight, Sulphur, and her debut poetry collection, The Art of Floating, was published in 2024 by Latitude 46. Her short fiction has appeared in SuperCanucks, Through the Portal, and Pulp Literature. She is a settler writing in Sudbury, or ‘N’Swakamok, on Robinson-Huron Treaty territory, home of the Atikameksheng Anishnawbek and the Wahnapitae First Nation, in the house where three generations of her family have lived, on the street that bears her surname, with her spouse and their dog.
Book Details
Publisher : Jane Ann McLachlan
Publication date : Sept. 26 2017
Language : English
Print length : 314 pages
ISBN-10 : 0993630677
ISBN-13 : 978-0993630675