Customer Reviews

Tamsin (Firebird Fantasy)

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm not exaggerating when I say that Peter Beagle is one of the best writers in the world. If you read fantasy, you've certainly read his novel "The Last Unicorn," voted one of the five best fantasy novels of all time. It's always a treat when he gifts us with a new story, which isn't often. In "Tamsin," he tries out a new style, very unlike anything he's written before. It's a twist on the classic ghost story, written from the viewpoint of a headstrong, 14-year old Bronx-raised girl who's trying to come to terms with her mother's remarriage, and with their new home: a run-down, 300-year old manor in the English countryside. If that wasn't bad enough, it turns out that the huge old house and farm that her family's trying to renovate are positively bustling with supernatural activity. Cold drafts, distant voices, boggarts in the kitchen, and things that go bump in the night. This supernatural world takes on an entirely new aspect for Jenny, however, when she discovers Tamsin, the ghost of a 19-year old girl who lived and "stopped," as she puts it, 300 years ago in the manor when it was first built. Tamsin is beautiful, mysterious and compelling, but as their friendship grows, Jenny is drawn deeper and deeper into the strange world of the "old country," and into deadly peril.

This is a great book for young and old alike. It's very compelling; you won't be able to put it down until the very end. Like most of Peter's books, the story runs the whole emotional range, from funny to sad to terrifying to joyous. And throughout, there's always the mystery and secret of Tamsin, unfolding piece by piece in Peter's Beagle's truly exhilarating, masterful, fairy-tale like style.

Wow. Wow. Just, wow.

This book is really a good one, I'd reccomend it to people definitely 12 or up (though it never would've stopped me). This book reads like it's fast paced, and it's only when you look at the size of the text, etc., that you notice how long it is. It's about the protagonist, Jenny, moving to England, and having to face many things, among them her decidedly sulky attitude (partly because of the 6-month loss of her dear, dear friend, Mister Cat, in quarantine). The other part of it is her house. It is HUGE, set on about a hundred (or, at least seventy) acres, with three floors, huge rooms... a real seventeenth-century 'manor'. But, it has not been cared for in a long time, and it seems to practically resist electricity. Soon Jenny meets Tamsin, a ghost who died when she was twenty and can't remember why she is still stuck on earth. It's really hard to put down.

Amazingly, the character descriptions and personalities are right on target. I could perfectly imagine the way every person would act in a real situation, probably because the atmosphere seems so much like real life.

Five stars and a round of applause for Peter S. Beagle!

This is a highly enjoyable ghost story. Ninteen year old New Yorker Jenny is looking back on the events that took place after she and her mother move to a run-down farm in Dorset, England to live with her stepfather and stepbrothers. Along with the story of Jenny coming to terms with her new stepfamily and settling in to a new school where she feels like an outsider, we also have the story of Tamsin.

Tamsin is the daughter of the original owner of the farm, from the fifteenth century. For some reason, Tamsin does not leave the farmhouse after her tragic early death, but hangs around in ghost form, along with her ghost cat. When Jenny sees and speaks to Tamsin, this seems to stir up all of the characters of myth and legend that abound in Dorset--Pookahs, Billy Blinds, and the Black Dog, who appears as an omen of something terrible to come.

Yet as we find out more about Tamsin's past, and Jenny is drawn deeper and deeper into the place where past and present meet, we realize that not all of these characters are merely mischevious--some are downright evil.

This book builds to a whirlwind climax that will have you on the edge of your set. It manages to be a thrilling ghost story while also a satisfying story of family life and "coming-of-age".

Very enjoyable.

I remember giving up "The Last Unicorn" after 3 chapters because of the somewhat ponderous prose. But I still picked up Beagle's "Tamsin" at a book sale because I was intrigued by the synopsis (I love all things English, and I love Dorset).

Still, it took me almost 4 months to open the pages of "Tamsin". And I couldn't put it down. (Neither could my wife, who swiped it off me soon after I'd started - we had quite a tussle over it!)

The amazing thing is what an immediate different experience "Tamsin" is to "Unicorn". Beagle writes thru a 19-year-old girl's eyes recounting her experiences at 13, and my wife swears "that's exactly how a teen girl thinks". He really gets the teen perspective spot-on. Amazing for a man whose teen years must be quite some decades behind him (sorry, Mr Beagle!).

It was a bit frustrating (just a bit) that the novel takes some time to get to the titular character - Tamsin - but in retrospect, it makes sense. Because the book is really just as much about the teen girl Jenny Gluckstein, who's uprooted from bustling New York to "dull" Dorset (so she had disgruntledly expected) by her mother's second marriage to an Englishman. This 'preamble' of quite a few chapters fleshes out Jenny's character really well - before the real fun starts!

That's when Tamsin is finally introduced, and the story's pace & drama move up a few notches. And so does the scare factor. Not any cheap, gimmicky kind, but one that really can send a chill down your spine, involving the unfolding a 300-year-old secret against a Dorset background rich in ghosts and myths.

I won't say anymore to spoil your enjoyment. This book is worth its full price - I'm just thrilled I got it at such a steal!

P.S. I'm now giving "The Last Unicorn" another chance - and hunting down more books by Peter S. Beagle!

The very first fantasy book I ever read was "The Last Unicorn". I still have fond memories of that book, but compared to Beagle's writing style of today it was crude. Over the years he has refined his skills. "Tamsin" is wonderful. That he can write a story from the perspective of a young girl, in a completely believable fashion, shows in itself how skillful he is. The young heroine is a unique person, but full of many of the same insecurities that most of us have experienced during our teens.

The story grows slowly, drawing the reader in, allowing the absurd to seem perfectly reasonable. A truly memorable tale. This is worth getting in hardcover.

I only bought this book because my first name happens to be Tamsin...but then I read it, and I can hardly remember a book that I loved more.

The characters are superb: the comical boggart and the billy-blind reminded me a lot of my old downstairs neighbour, while the baddie was simply a masterpiece of suave villainy.

It's a ghost story, but it's also a tale of love, and especially of friendship. The intensity and poignancy of the friendship between Jenny and Tamsin made my heart sing and ache. The book is full of vivid little details and observations: Jenny obsesses over her hair and skin, while Tamsin remembers her anxiety over her wolf tooth; Tamsin's crush on Jenny's step-brother, Tony; the way Jenny felt when Tamsin smiles at her. Such touches express the pain and glory of the protagonist, "stopped" at the dawn of her womanhood, and haunted by a dread she cannot bear to name.

It's a beautiful book, and I'm sure I shall be reading it again many times.

Peter Beagle's most recent book creates characters that are so well-rounded and defined that you can't NOT believe in them. Jenny is, of course, the exact portrait of a thirteen-year-old, but not only that, everyone that surrounds her is fully fleshed out with a thousand details about their personality. It would be far too easy to turn them into stereotypes of 'the little brother', 'the best friend', 'the long-lost lover', but instead, they're completely real, with good points and bad points . . . the story itself could have so easily become just exactly like a million other stories of its type, but Peter Beagle handles it with such expertise and originality that you can't even consider comparing the book to anything else.

I borrowed this book because I wanted to read a ghost story and because of the setting--Dorset, England. But the first half of the book is consumed by the spoilt angry 13 yr old heroine and made me impatient. Not that it wasn't right on target about children of divorced parents, relocation and the strange importance some things can be when one is 13 years old but I wasn't prepared to go down memory lane just yet. It's tough being 13 and I'm just getting over it! On the other hand, the ghost story (once we finally get into it) is substantial and eerie. Tamsin is a vivid character and the descriptions of the old and present Dorset/farmhouse are realistic. I love the portrayal of the cats and Mr Cat has all the attributes a true cat! (Patting his paws on eyelids, making the questioning 'prrrp' sound) Good book and thank God I am no longer a Young Adult but an aging Woman!

Peter S. Beagle is in fine form again and has produced a wonderful Young Adult novel, quite suitable for us older adults who still dream and respect elder thickets. Tamsin belongs on the shelf next to Susan Cooper and Madeleine L'Engle, perhaps a little closer to the adult section because of the tolerance needed for his protagonist's initial 13-year old self-centered whine. She matures as the story unfolds, her growing emotional maturity driving events as the events force her maturity. Beagle has thought this out well; by the end, Jenny Gluckstein has become morally worthy of riding the Pooka after the Wild Hunt and getting help from a Great Old One to save a friend and bring closure to a 300 year old atrocity. She's a refreshingly tough kid with a good heart, neither bland nor shrinking. Her stubborn courage involves her, not her mere presence in a place of magic; she is consequently an admirable participant and actor instead of a passive observer. Five stars should be five cheers!

Beagle brought me to a place I didn't ever want to leave. Then he created a family I sincerely missed after I turned the last page, and that's only the people who were alive! This story gave me chills, it was so absorbing, and his matter-of-fact descriptions of fey beasties makes me want to believe. I wish with all my heart that I had read this when I was in eighth or ninth grade, when the magic of Beagle's writing would have transported me for days. This is the first Peter Beagle book I ever read, and let me tell you, don't get between me and his books at the library...