3.5 starsAfter most of the land on Earth is covered by water, society splits into those who own land on the remaining archipelagos and those who live at sea, known as damplings. This is a world rich with strangeness and its own rituals. Callanish, is a "grace keeper," tasked to lay the dead to rest on behalf of the grieving family. I found the graceyard setting oddly beautiful. When the dead are put in their final resting place, a caged bird is placed above water to mark the water grave. When th...

This is a truly beautiful and magical novel.A flooded world, where few islands remain, and those who inhabit the land are landlockers. Everyone else lives on boats and are known as damplings.North is a dampling she works as the bear-girl on a circus boat known as The Excalibur. The circus folk are the only family she has ever known, and she would never want to leave. However, she is harbouring a secret - a secret that might destroy the life she has built. Callanish is a Gracekeeper. She arranges...

Oh not sure where to begin with this one – you know sometimes you read a book that just touches your heart for reasons you can’t really put into words – well “The Gracekeepers” is just such a novel, beautifully written, highly compelling with such wonderful characters and setting that you just sink into it and leave the real world behind.Where you will find yourself is within a post apocalyptic setting where most of the earth is covered with water, small pieces of land dotted around. The inhabit...

3.5 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum http://bibliosanctum.com/2015/06/06/b...I went into The Gracekeepers very carefully. From what I’d heard, it sounded a lot like the kind of literary magical realism which would require an active engagement of the reader’s imagination in order to fill in the gaps, and books like this with their haunting, dreamlike style can either be a huge hit with me or it can fall flat. After completing novel, I think my feelings hover somewhere in between. Overall I enjoyed...

Whelp, here is one of 3 magical/fantasy/realism circus-type books I've read in the past 3 months completely accidentally coincidentally. I didn't know this genre was so strong.I picked up this book in Edinburgh while on vacation because the cover is lovely. In England. Here in the US it's kind of poopy and looks like a tampon commercial. But the book is very nice and fairy-tale-ish, kind of "Water for Chocolate" meets a seafaring fantasy world. There are a few women characters who are really gre...

If you liked The Night Circus or Station Eleven then you’ll probably like this. I thought that it was better than both of those novels. It’s beautifully written and has the most eeirly evocative landscape where the earth has been flooded and all that’s left are a few islands. You’ve got people who live on the islands, called the Landlockers, and those who live on boats on the sea, called Damplings. It’s about two women, one on land, one on the sea. It’s about bodily autonomy and a woman’s right

As I said when I first sampled The Gracekeepers last September, I feared, at first, that it wasn't for me - that the fantastical premise was too whimsical for my tastes and that it was in danger of being too twee. However, the first few chapters really surprised me. I was drawn straight into its world and wanted to read on; I found the characters easy to care about, and the story gave me the same cosy, magical feeling as Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus. (Unlike many readers, I enjoyed that b...

One of the most beautiful and interesting story worlds I've ever encountered! Unlike other reviewers, I didn't mind the relatively slow-paced plot at all and thought it fit really well into the quiet and magical atmosphere of the story. A new favourite for sure!

Such a beautiful and atmospheric novel - the writing is so graceful and the characters well developed. I love North and Callandish and the way their relationship develops.

Kirsty Logan has such a lovely way with words. Take this description of an apple: The apple was a perfect sphere, green speckled with red, shiny as a bird’s eye. Avalon pulled a silver knife from her dress pocket and cut the apple’s softening flesh into quarters, exposing the pips tenderly. Its scent exploded in the air: sweetly souring, past its best but still with a sheen of juice.It made me go and eat an apple. Sadly it wasn’t quite as tantalizing as the description. I will say that without t...

It was not okay; it gets two stars because it was readable in a messy soap opera kind of way. Okay, full review: I don't think I've ever read such a mess of a story. And I've read some convoluted messes.So why does the Gracekeepers gets the first place in "Most Convoluted Story" award?Well... imagine a vaguely distopyan setting in which the Planet has suffered the full consequences of global warming: The level of water has risen, leaving most of Earth (well, I'm guessing here... maybe it's so...

This book transports you to another world where everything is upside down. Here, you live on water or on small islands. Those who live on water would never want to live on land, and vice versa. The circus that we follow is based on water, and it floats around to the islands in order to give performances. Furthermore, we follow the story of an islander who works as a Rester. Everything is magical in this story, and it appeals very much to your imagination. I liked this world building, because it

Logan’s inventive debut novel imagines a circus traveling through a flooded future world. Humanity is divided into two races, landlockers and damplings. Fear and prejudice distance these groups but the novel imagines them drawn together through a meeting between two young women, Callanish and North. Callanish, a gracekeeper, performs resting ceremonies for the dead with the help of graces, totem birds that symbolize grief. North, part of the Circus Excalibur, performs a funeral-and-resurrection

Book analysis and author interview in video (: http://youtu.be/Lw6xJc1lYbM

Living in a world where the oceans had taken over the land; where only pockets of small islands dotted the horizon, were two types of people. The people who lived on land (landlockers) and those who dwelt on the sea (damplings). The damplings we learn about in The Gracekeepers lived on the Excalibur; a crew of circus performers who travelled from island to island, performing and entertaining the landlockers so they could eat. North was a member of the circus, a bear-girl; her beloved bear perfor...

Whaaaaaat was this awesomeness? I loved it. Loved it loved it loved it. 500 Jean-Ralphios, 18 pounds of glitter, and 60 ice cream sandwiches worth of stars!An Incoherent Jumble of Reasons Why Kristy Logan's The Gracekeepers is the Bomb1) No, seriously it was perfection. I have no complaints, and I'm a very complainy person. The writing, the characters, and the uber-original story were all just so damn good. Oh god, the deliciously dreamy writing! [clutches heart!] It was like eating an ice cream...

“We're all islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding.” ----Rudyard KiplingKirsty Logan, a British author, pens her new novel, The Gracekeepers which is about two individuals living, on the realm by the edge of the sea, with a hope that someday they would be able to put their feet on the mainland. Synopsis: As a Gracekeeper, Callanish administers shoreside burials, sending the dead to their final resting place deep in the depths of the ocean. Alone on her island, she h

In her debut novel, Kirsty Logan has created an unusual, ethereal, almost magical watery world where the seas have risen to flood the cities and there are only pockets of land left to live on. Only the privileged few live on the land (the landlockers) and the others (known as damplings) must survive on the sea in boats, constantly travelling from island to island offering entertainment or services in exchange for food.Against this background we meet North, member of a travelling circus where she...

I am not going to finish this. I've read 30% of the book and I'm simply not willing to spend more of my time on this. Don't get me wrong, the writing is beautiful and the setting is fantastic. It is kind of dystopian, however very fairy tale like, there is a circus! It's the fairy tale version of Waterworld! But with depth! And still it doesn't grab me...I can't really put my finger on what it is but this book is doing nothing for me. Maybe it is the obvious kind of describing things that puts m...

Originally posted on: Meh.That’s what I feel about this book. I had such high hopes. I love reading about possible futures for the Earth and I love seeing an author’s view of how humanity will adapt. This book was no exception. The idea of an Earth almost completely covered in water is intriguing. Unfortunately, that’s about the only thing that intrigued me.The book is told from multiple viewpoints and is mostly about North and the group of circus performers that she travels with. As