Customer Reviews

A Cluster of Separate Sparks

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This is my favorite book. I have read this book at least a dozen times and I keep coming back to it. It is a classic gothic mystery with a twist at the end. It is, girl escapes tragic events gets into a mystery and catches the man of her dreams on a Greek Island. I know of at least two other people who have read this book and have the same feelings about it. I know this book is out of print. I found a copy in a second hand book store and I guard it. Don't let the tacky cover put you off. This is a great read and alot of fun.

I have fond memories of girlhood afternoons spent with Joan Aiken's heroines, between Joan and Mary Stewart I think my early adulthood was blighted waiting for a gothic adventure like the ones so delightfully detailed here. Joan Aiken, better known for her children's books, was a prolific novelist in the second half of the twentieth century. Her books for adults are gothics, both contemporary and historical, of the plucky heroine variety finding unexpected adventure in an exotic setting. A Cluster of Separate Sparks fits the formula, but good characterization and humour set this above the formulaic usual.

Georgia follows her cousin to Greece just in time to witness her murder. As she tries to find the culprit and stay alive, she finds adventure and romance in the castle and school of a wealthy man who employed her cousin as a psychiatrist for the troubled children in his care. Sharp dialogue, romantic settings and proto-feminism set this above the usual pulp offerings.

After her "Beware of the Bouquet", Joan Aiken wrote something like five adult novels after that which all were too problematic to recommend. With a "Cluster of separate sparks", finally she wrote another work that I enjoyed. "Cluster" follows Daphne, a girl who goes to a Greek island looking for work that her icy but brillant cousin found for her, but things get complicated when the cousin is murdered and Daphne can't prove it; then her plane to Athens is hijacked by Arabs disguised as Orthodox priests, and then she is let off near the estate of a reclusive and rich man who cares for a number of children, some the unfortune children of the famous. Our heroine falls in love with the rich man, but has to struggle with the fact that someone is trying to kill her. Slowly, the truth about her cousin and her involvement in an international plot is revealed, and their is a climax near a swarm of massive butterflies. Comic reading.