Not sure whether to post my review here or on the other thread linked to this novel, so will do both!
Katie Munnik is clearly a very talented writer and I loved her descriptions of nature and the landscape. In many ways she reminded me of writers such as Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes. The novel was packed with original and imaginative details and images – the sort you wish you had thought of yourself, and she certainly created in my mind a very vivid picture of the surroundings of her characters in Scotland and Canada.
I did feel that the plot itself was a disappointment – and if you are looking for a novel that offers a ‘page turning’ narrative, then you will feel a bit let down by ‘The Heart Beats in Secret’. The letter to Pidge from her gran at the beginning pulled me into the story line, but after that I found the plot very static. Yes, it was interesting to compare the experiences of three generations of mothers, but I found that – even as a daughter, mother and grandmother, I couldn’t really identify with the characters. Maybe the Canadian aspect was distancing? Spoiler alert – I felt no real emotional engagement when the baby Stanley died, and then Marie. Surely the commune was to blame in some way?
I’ll be interested to discover what other readers felt about the characters and their situations. Perhaps I’ll read it again to see if second time round I enjoy it more. As I said earlier, I loved the descriptive details of the landscape, and feel that Katie Munnik is probably a better poet than novelist at this stage in her career.
