The Wine of Angels (A Merrily Watkins Mystery)

I have just discovered the Merrily Watkins series of novels, and I couldn't be more thrilled. Phil Rickman manages to create the perfect blend: interesting characters with a lot of depth, mystery with a tinge of the supernatural, and charming recreation of English village life.
In this particular book, Merrily (a priest in the Anglican church) scouts out the village that will be her next post, and participates in a seemingly harmless ritual in an ancient apple orchard. Although the ritual is meant to embue the orchard with new life and increase the apple harvest, it is enacted by a yuppie couple who only intend to promote commercialism in the village and increase tourism. Something goes very wrong, and an old man dies in a particularly horrible and bloody way.
Throughout the rest of the book, we see this dynamic tension between the modern world and the darker, "old" ways of the English countryside. While all this is going on, we get to know Merrily and her feisty daughter who both have their own problems adjusting to small village life. Rickman does a great job of keeping us on the edge of our seat, as we wonder how Merrily will resolve her position in the church with the undeniably powerful dark forces that confront her.
I must say that I never saw the ending coming, and was pleased by the clever resolution.

As an avid reader stumbling onto something truly new and interesting is such a rare and welcome treat. I have read a few of Phil Rickmans stand alone older novels and loved them. This is the first in the Merrily Watkins series and it is a pleasure to read. Atmospheric and well written, the pace plot and charaters are all excellent. I wont go into yet another description of the story as many others have already done so..but I will say BUY THIS BOOK! You will be so happy that you did and wont be able to wait to read the next one. Here is a helpful hint on the order of books in the series:
1. Wine of Angels
2. Midwinter of the Spirit
3. A Crown of Lights
4. The Cure of Souls
5. The Lamp of the Wicked
6. The Prayer of the Night Shepard
7. The Smile of a Ghost
8. Remains of an Altar
9. The Fabric of Sin

I have a deep and abiding love both of realistic characters and true horror in books. The problem is that both are terribly rare commodities. Phil Rickman, I must take my hat off to you for handling both.

I have read books with characters who are admirable, heroic, likeable, believable, but that is not quite the same thing as realistic. Take Merrily Watkins for an antidote, however. Merrily is a very real woman. She's 35, a widow, a vicar in the Anglican church, mother to a 15-year-old daughter (who is a delightful and exasperating handful herself), and struggling with a serious appointment in a very small town. Yes, she smokes; yes, she swears now and again, but these are not affectations. Instead, Merrily is a complex person, one with private inconsistencies that make sense as time goes by as well as deep truths that both drive and guide her. Merrily is no superheroine, no master-of-all-situations, but rather a very real, very vulnerable, very tough, very reactive human being trying to make the best of the oddities life has thrown at her. Sometimes she chooses brilliantly, sometimes not. But when all is said and done, what actions she takes and what thoughts she has make sense for the person that she is. She is not a character who serves a plot, but rather a person caught with words on a page. Outside of "War & Peace" and "Crime & Punishment" I have not run across characters I love so deeply and react to on such an intense, human level as those created by Phil Rickman in this series.

Now on to horror...

Most "horror" writers use a lot of red ink. Blood is everywhere, torture abounds, and even ghosts throw things about with alacrity. In point of fact, most horror writers seem more interested in gross than in the tiny thrill of true horror, that moment when something is just a touch wrong, and you know it, but you cannot put your fingers on it, thus making it all the more terrifying for not being able to describe it. Mr. Rickman, conversely, understands this true horror. While many Big Things happen in this book, often the horror aspects are easily explained away -- a person with a psychological hang-up, a nasty public confrontation, someone fed a story about, say, rather nasty faeries in the apple grove at just the right/wrong time. You never actually /see/ a ghost, but you feel them. There is death and mayhem in this book, but that is not the real horror. The horror is a combination of the all-too-human side of reality that people often wish to deny and the subtle, very, very subtle misplacement of the senses, especially of what Is and what Isn't.

Of the books in the series, I give this one 4 stars, although I would probably give 5 stars to the others. There are a few times in this book that the writing weakens, leaving you to scratch your head for a moment or two over just which character is talking or exactly where the plot is heading, but then it gets back on track very strongly and directly. The later books feel more comfortable, confident and controlled -- I wanted to rate this one because it is where people begin the series, though I may get around to the others as well. In the end, this is very strong, very realistic writing and well worth the read.

Give it a try -- what could you possibly have to lose?

Phil Rickman is known for his long, heavily plotted novels and this one is no exception. While one must admit to Rickman's skills in developing characters and offering multi-layered plots, I found this thriller to be less than thrilling and way too long to sustain interest. I had to force myself to finish it as Rickman did manage to at least pique my interest. Set in a small English village, the plot focuses on a female minister and her rather annoying daughter and some kind of mysticism surrounding a former minister who supposedly committed suicide centuries before. An attempt to stage a play revolving around this suicide brings out the demons in the small town. There are so many characters and such rambling passages that WINE OF ANGELS ends up tedious, repetitive and by the time the mystery is solved, one forgets who the characters are. Shaving off a couple of hundred pages may have made this a good read; I do not, however, recommend it unless you have patience and perseverance.

While following a typical "whodonnit"-cum-supernatural-thriller formula, what Phil Rickman does in the series of novels that begins here is more, much more ambitious. Through well fleshed-out, impossible to forget characters, and a very intense sense of atmosphere (really, the village and buildings are just like characters with a definite -i.e. compllex- personality) Rickman explores some of the spiritual alternatives offered in western society. In spite of the aparent lack of interest in anything related to the spiritual that many of the characters display -as for instance the protagonist's own teenage daughter-, under the surface we see how many are desperately looking for something to believe in, to use as guidance in our complicated world. This -conscious or unconscious- search for meaning leaves many of the most unlucky characters just trying to keep the balance and survive (like the ex rock-star Lol), or plain unbalanced. The lucky ones receive what they interpret as a clear sign, and have the guts to follow it to the ultimate consequences (such is the case of Merrily, the protagonist, who in a few years has given her life a sudden turn by not just becoming religous, but also a priest). But maybe the least lucky of all, as I see in these novels, are the cynics, the people bent on being materalistic, on finding the easiest answers and the shortcuts.

And above all, there is a sense of connection with the past, with the place and the events that happened there and that bring unavoidable consequences. Because even if we want to reject this connection, if we don't want to see that the deeds of our ancestors have an influence in our present, that we are surrounded by their effects.... that won't make them disappear. Past and present are connected in this first Merily Watkins novel in dangerous, surprising ways, and the labour of finding out "whodonnit" refers to the past as much as to the present. The outcome is highly original, surprising and fresh. You won't be able to put the book down until you are guided through the convoluted past and present fact and learn exactly WHAT.

The subject of this series is thorny, but the author manages to deliver incredibly good stories that handle in a surprisingly gutsy and candid way some of the many spiritual options available -and the dangers and limits they can entail- , while being generally respectful and delivering great fiction -the characters and sense of atmosphere are especially superb. I have read 6 of the novels in these series and liked them all....in fact I usually read them as a treat when I deserve one....

This is a great way to be introduced to the Reverend Merrily Watkins and her daughter Jane. The story moves well and there are a lot of twist and turns, but there doesn't seem to be quite as much paranormal involvement as I've become familiar with in Rickman's other novels. I love his settings in old Welsh or English towns... even the minor characters prove to be interesting and integral to the plot. Mr. Rickman also is a wonderful source to finding out more about older Celtic legends, myths and monsters.
I've been a fan of Phil Rickman's work since my sister turned me on to his books a few years ago (specifically DECEMBER, CURFEW and CANDLENIGHT). I love his lyrical style and attention to detail in those books. Unfortunately, he just didn't seem to have the same flow in this novel as he did in his others. I'm not saying that this isn't a good novel... its just not one of his better ones.

I read 'Midwinter of the Spirit' and 'Crown of Lights' before getting to this introduction to Merrily Watkins. Having loved those two books I shall certainly read the rest, but I was slightly disappointed by this book. Parts were chilling, parts were un-put-downable, but there were moments when I felt rather let down by the plot, because the build up had promised something spectacular but only something fair to middling was delivered. The haunted vicarage scenes were so downplayed that they were hardly worth the signposting, and might as well have just been presented as bad dreams on Merrily's part. The play in the church could have been a lot more dramatic (pardon the pun), because even though in real life it might well have been just as bitty and unsatisfying as it was written, this is not why I buy chillers or thrillers. My final disappointment was at the very end of the book, with events at the cider house feeling unfinished. What should have been a breathtaking climax to the book was a real damp squib. I can understand a writer not wanting to go over the top with a book in this genre, and I have no problem with subtlety, but I do like a feeling of resolution at the end of a book, which I found sadly lacking in this one.

The real story does not start until well past page 250. Prior to that it is ALL exposition, a parade of a veritable phonebook of characters, and numerous unnecessary tangential subplots. It took me a long time to figure out what the real focus was in this rambling, incident-filled book. It's obvious that Rickman thoroughly enjoyed creating this village and all its inhabitants but many of these characters serve no purpose whatsoever. Lots of false tension when contrived plot incidents are thrown in as obstacles before we get to the real meat of the story. And endless reiteration and redundancy - especially the moody, angst-filled musings of the ex-rock star who contemplates a la Hamlet his own suicide in four separate sections. And the first time wasn't even that interesting. This book could easily have been less than one half of its voluminous, turgid length.

Initially I was drawn to this because it was a modern crime tale that blended folklore and the supernatural. I like what Rickman is trying to do here, but there's quite a bit of digging through a bleak and murky mine before you get to even a smidgen of the vein of gold that is the real story of Merrily, Jane, Lucy and Lol. The ideas of fate vs. purpose, faith vs. doubt, the contrast of the paradoxes in organized religion and less structured pagan or naturist beliefs -- all of these themes finally come through in the last third of the book. The "crime" part of this crime novel (and there are a few) is almost thrown in as an afterthought. Really this is something akin to George Eliot meets Arthur Machen (how's that for an egghead literary allusion?) in a contemporary setting. I'll try my hand at the next book in the series in which Merrily becomes an exorcist and see if Rickman manages to lay off the tangents, minutiae and often mundane sideline incidents. I see that all of these books weigh in at over 400 pages. Somehow I don't think I'm going to make it through all of these.

This is a very well-written, effective story, and it kept me hooked until the end. An added bonus (for me) is that this is a real British novel, as opposed to an Americanized version (a la Harry Potter) of a British novel. Excellent for providing my anglophiliac fix.

I chose The Wine of Angels because I had heard that it was suspenseful without being graphic, which is true. However, (tiny spoiler here) there is a fairly strong rape theme running throughout. While there is nothing explicit, if I had known about it I probably wouldn't have chosen this book.

In summary, this book is close to perfect -- if you are not sensitive to a constant threat of sexual violence.

This is a review of the audiobook so I will be mentioning the narrator along with the text.

Phil Rickman, who I have only known until recently as the author of three thick horror tomes, manages to create in the stories of Merrily Watkins, her family and her flock, a fascinating novel that deals with a distant event in the history of her parish, an event that resonates from the 17th century to the 21st. Merrily to be installed in her first post as "Priest in Charge" i.e., Vicar of a small village which is currently suffering the strain of meeting the 21st century. She is also dealing with the consequences of her calling to become a minister in the Church of England.

This is not a cozy mystery. There are disturbing events with sexual relevance. This book also addresses loss and suicide and death. And there is a particular reason why the arrival of female vicar would rouse spirits thought long put to rest.

Merrily, her adolescent daughter Jane and the enigmatic elderly woman, Lucy to an excellent job in a Christian context of portraying the triple form of the goddess: the mother, the virgin and the crone. It is rendered even more fascinating by the knowledge that Merrily would repudiate any such thought with fervor.

Rickman does an excellent job. And he also brings in themes in the very first book of the series that he will explore in more depth in other books in the series: the importance of place in the sacred and the importance of folklore to the place. Further in the book he brings up Nick Drake, a British singer/songwriter whose fame came after his early death of presumed suicide. If you want to get the most out of this book I would suggest [[ASIN:B000025XKM Pink Moon]] and [[ASIN:B000PTYS2W Family Tree]]. One thing to remember about Rickman is that he never carelessly uses symbols. They all have meaning.

Now the audio part: Emma Powell is the narrator. She is a British actress and voice over artist. Her voice is husky but clear. While her accents are sometimes not easy to place-- or maybe I just lack an ear for the subtler British dialects-- she does a very good job of denoting male and female characters without obvious strain. I did not find her diction to be difficult or mumbling. It might, of course, come down to the quality of the playback equipment.