Book Review: Untying the Knot by Linda Gillard

These words appear inside the cover of Untying the Knot:

A ruined castle.
A ruined marriage.
Two shattered lives.
When love is not enough, who pays the price?

Here’s the synopsis from Goodreads:

A wife is meant to stand by her man. An army wife particularly. But Fay didn’t. She walked away – from Magnus, her traumatized war hero husband and from the home he was restoring: Tullibardine Tower, a ruinous 16th century tower house on a Perthshire hillside. Now their daughter Emily is marrying someone she shouldn’t. And so is Magnus…

“Everyone makes mistakes, but I sometimes think I’ve made more than most. Marrying Magnus was one of them. But the biggest mistake I ever made was divorcing him.”

My Review:

Linda Gillard tells a touching love story in this beautifully written book. Through all Magnus’s deployments, Fay lives the life of a stalwart army wife, enduring his long absences and always fearing he’ll be killed. When he is seriously injured, his military career ends and his PTSD begins. Then after his return to civilian life he buys the ruins of a 16th century tower house with plans to restore it (and himself in the process) and their shaky marriage unravels. When Fay can no longer deal with his continual nightmares, flashbacks, and hallucinations, they divorce. The book begins five years after they’ve ended their marriage.

The story is compelling and the characters are strong and never dull. But the passages describing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are what I’ll remember most. The author takes us inside the head of Magnus, a soldier who has served in the Falklands and other combat zones, as a member of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal team. In other words, he defused bombs. Not only does the author give Magnus’s point of view during his PTSD episodes, she shows his wife Fay’s experience as well. Seeing the disorder from both viewpoints gives a compelling picture of just how devastating this illness can be. The author’s ability to go deep inside her characters made this a book I won’t soon forget.

Here’s the link to Untying the Knot on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/UNTYING-THE-KNOT-ebook/dp/B005JTAMQO/

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