The Mariner's Star - Softcover

'An exquisite novel...a treat to be lingered over'

'From the opening lines, THE MARINER'S STAR seizes and holds you by the force of its writing, with startling, vital images on every page and the musical rhythms of the prose...THE MARINER'S STAR is a love story and, like all great love stories, a death story... The novel's cumulative effect is emotionally rocking. The writing is so evocative that to read it feels like being inside a painting...I wasn't far in before I was wondering whether there was anything much Candida Clark couldn't do. By page 43, I had already recommended the book twice. By the end, I was making a list of people to whom I intended to give it...It left me feeling hollowed out and weepy, although I hesitate to say so, because its overall effect is of such intense, and profound, pleasure' - Geraldine Bedell, OBSERVER

'Exquisite...By page 43, I had already recommended the book twice. By the end, I was making a list of people to whom I intended to give it...The Mariner's Star is a love story and, like all great love stories, a death story...the whole book is like a treat to be lingered over...[it] left me feeling hollowed out and weepy, although I hesitate to say so, because its overall effect is of such intense, and profound, pleasure' Observer

'Beautifully written by a novelist to watch' Robert McCrum, Observer

'In astonishingly beautiful prose - taut, lyrical, passionate and poetic - the young Candida Clark tells the increasingly irresistible story of her journey towards, and through, the enticing allure of memory and utter despair' Harpers & Queen

'Clark writes mellifluously. Image is piled upon image. Rhapsodic evocation of sensuous pleasure gives way to equally rhapsodic description of natural beauty...This is literary lace-making, insubstantial but exquisite' The Sunday Times

'Arresting...The Mariner's Star is unlike anything else currently being written in England, worked out with enormous conviction and conveying the seriousness of its authorial purpose at every turn' DJ Taylor, The Literary Review

'Clark is an interesting and imaginative novelist...far too few of today's fiction writers take risks with form or style' Guardian

'Poetry [to] savour...its ultimately optimistic message of new life emerging from grief lingers and comforts' Independent

'Clark is an interesting and imaginative novelist, and far too few of today's fiction writer's take risks with form or style' Guardian

'A delicate, poetic and unforgettably moving miniature of grief and resignation' Sue Gaisford, Independent on Sunday

THE MARINER'S STAR is a short, sharp, knock-out of a book. It's a gripping, dramatic adventure and a mesmeric love story: the last hours of a woman who has lost those she loves at sea, and sets out to face her own inevitable death. Whether or not she will survive storms and shipwreck in order to kill herself, or to find redemption, makes THE MARINER'S STAR one of the most exciting, shocking, powerful novels you will ever read.