Product Description

In the year 1912, a fisherman discovers an infant adrift on an ice floe in the North Atlantic. Back in the Newfoundland village of Drook she's considered a changeling, with her white hair and eyes of different colors. Her very survival shows that her life is charmed. Named Aurora, after the dawn of her rescue from the sea, she exhibits a singular nature as she grows to womanhood amid the austere beauty of the Newfoundland coast. She marries and has two children, but it is only after they are grown, and she is an old woman, that the mystery of Aurora's origins is solved.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1077326 in Books
• Published on: 2002-12-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 295 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In this meandering tale of an extraordinary woman's life, Clark (Eriksdottir; Swimming Toward the Light) strives to give everyday existence a magical aura, with mixed results. The novel opens with a fantastic conceit: a baby in a basket on a piece of ice survives the sinking of the Titanic and is discovered by a kindly Newfoundland fisherman, Francis St. Croix. He dubs her Aurora because she is found "in a gleaming dawn," and she becomes part of the St. Croix family. Aurora is a delightfully quirky child, who seems to embody the unusual circumstances of her incredible journey. She has white hair, is never cold, gambols barefoot where others hesitate to tread, loves nature and has a special affinity for animals. The small community in the valley of the Drook, where the St. Croix family lives, looks upon her as of another world. Even Tom Mulloy, the man she comes to marry, sees her as "a fairy maid." The book shifts from Aurora's story to that of her children: Nancy, a headstrong woman who wants to be everything her mother isn't, and Stanley, a late bloomer who overcomes personal tragedy and retains his mother's passion for exploration, becoming a deep-sea-diving expert on ice. It is Nancy's daughter, Sheila, who unravels Aurora's mysterious past and links her to a family that set out on the Titanic for a new life in America. Clark captures the stark magnificence of Newfoundland and portrays a changing world as technology and civilization make indelible marks on a fading seafaring era. Labored prose and overdetailed storytelling weigh down the tale, but Aurora's story will please those with an interest in northerly lands and Titanic mythmaking.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

One morning in 1912, Newfoundland fisherman Francis St. Croix finds a baby floating on a chunk of ice. When no one claims her, he takes her as his own and names her Aurora. Her mysterious origins plus her white hair and her eyes, one blue and one brown make people suspicious. But as the years pass she gains acceptance, marries lighthouse keeper Tom, and has two children whose lives reflect the social, cultural, and political developments in Newfoundland. Daughter Nancy leaves home for the city of St. John and has an affair with one of her instructors that results in a child and then marriage, and son Stan becomes a scientist studying ice. It is Nancy's daughter who finally solves the mystery of Aurora's heritage. Clark (Victory of Geraldine Gull) weaves Newfoundland traditions, shipwrecks, and the barren, ice-covered landscape into the ebb and flow of the lives of her characters as they experience the Depression, war, and the Sixties to create a story of an outsider's gradual acceptance of and by a community. Recommended. Joshua Cohen, Mid-Hudson Lib. Syst., Poughkeepsie, NY

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
In a novel as subtle as the working of water on ice, set in a place in the North Atlantic known as the Latitudes of Melt where icebergs dissolve, Clark reveals the life of Aurora St. Croix, who was discovered as an infant on an ice pan off the coast of Newfoundland, and explores how families, emotions, and countries are lost, found, or sometimes simply melt away. Clark writes for both adults and children, and the fancy found in tales for the young shapes Aurora's childhood as she wanders the barrens, runs into fairies, and takes up residence with a fox family. As odd as that may seem in a novel that tackles the confederation of Canada, the prejudice of Protestant families in Ireland, and death in any number of manifestations, it's just that juxtaposition of the fey and the mundane that moves the novel forward. Lush with the revelations of many characters and the richly described landscape of Newfoundland, Clark's tale exposes the daily struggle to build a life and cope with its inevitable dissolution. Neal Wyatt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

A beautiful book full of magic
This was a beautiful book that portrayed a very complex character. Aurora is found as a baby wrapped in a basket covered by a rubber sheet tied to an upturned chair which is floating on an ice slab in the Artic Ocean off the coast of Newfoundland. It is only a few days after the Titanic disaster but nobody is looking for this baby and from the beginning everything about her seems unusual. She has pale skin and almost white hair and she always feels cool. She likes to wander by herself and she has a very unusual connection with animals which leads the locals to think that maybe she was left by faeries. I think I liked this book because although it paints this very ethereal picture of Aurora as a baby and as a child she has a very human marriage and a complex relationship with her children that is portrayed in a believable way. You do not always like Aurora's decisions and the book has its share of heartbreak but I guarantee you will feel you've encountered a genuine and unique story that will stay with you long after you've finished the book.

beautiful, involving saga
This is a beautifully-written book, providing a strong setting and feeling of Newfoundland, where it is mainly set. The timeline of the book follows the same as the life of Aurora, an ethereal spirit who was discovered as a baby floating on an ice slab in middle of the Atlantic ocean, her birthplace and story up until that point a mystery to all. From that point on, we come to know her, the members of her complex but very human family, and ultimately, to feel a part of the family and land. Highly recommended.