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    Emotional Geology
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    Emotional Geology
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    Emotional Geology
    Ebook314 pages4 hours

    Emotional Geology

    By Linda Gillard

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    A passionate, off-beat love story set on the bleak and beautiful island of North Uist in the Outer Hebrides.

    Rose Leonard is on the run from her life. Haunted by her turbulent past, she takes refuge in a remote Hebridean island community where she cocoons herself in work, silence and solitude in a house by the sea. A new life and new love are offered by friends, her estranged daughter and most of all by Calum, a fragile younger man who has his own demons to exorcise. But does Rose, with her tenuous hold on sanity, have the courage to say "Yes" to life and put her past behind her?

    REVIEWS

    "The emotional power makes this reviewer reflect on how Charlotte and Emily Bronte might have written if they were living and writing now."
    Northwords Now

    "Complex and important issues are played out in the windswept beauty of a Hebridean island setting, with a hero who is definitely in the Mr Darcy league!"
    www.ScottishReaders.net

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLinda Gillard
    Release dateMar 18, 2014
    ISBN9781311267382
    Unavailable
    Emotional Geology
    Author

    Linda Gillard

    Linda Gillard lives in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, and has been an actress, journalist and teacher. She’s the author of eight novels, including Star Gazing, shortlisted in 2009 for Romantic Novel of the Year and the Robin Jenkins Literary Award. Star Gazing was also voted Favourite Romantic Novel 1960–2010 by Woman’s Weekly readers. Linda’s fourth novel, House of Silence, became a Kindle bestseller and was selected by Amazon as one of its Top Ten “Best of 2011” in the Indie Author category. Find out more about Linda at www.lindagillard.co.uk.

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    Reviews for Emotional Geology

    4/5

    44 ratings7 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This was a tough read. The subject matter that is. Rose is attempting to start fresh after an attempted suicide; a subject that I personally tend to stay away from. It's not a very enticing subject, and not very entertaining for obvious reasons. But sometimes it's not what is being said, but how one says it that matters. I could not have stomached this story if Gillard's writing had been any less beautiful. It's fitting that it's a story about an artist, as it paints very vivid pictures. I envisioned landscapes and backdrops, in an array of colors and textures as Rose created each piece. I felt and shared Calum's frustration as he struggled to reach Rose, who was still trapped in the place between the death of her old life and the hope of a new one. I loved that their relationship grew through their art, and they found each other in her pictures and his poems. I also hated Gavin. What a horror of a human being. And while I can't blame him for Rose's actions, those are hers to own and hers alone, I'd rather she tried to off him than herself. By the end of the story I had yet to come to terms with her daughter, Megan, and thinking on her now I'm still not sure that I could forgive her, even if her mother could. The book takes place on an island off the coast of Scotland and the entire story is steeped in cold and damp, and the struggle to keep it out of the heart. Normally I would be opposed to the idea of two sad saps coming together but Rose and Calum's relationship was not one about healing by relying on another. I would not have been able to tolerate a needy, dependant, damaged love between two damaged people. Rose was adamant that she would be the one to fix Rose, and Calum never once interfered, each of them attending to their own pasts without making the other its keeper.
    • 5/5
      Months ago I read a wonderful book called Star Gazing. Its author, Linda Gillard, lives on an island off Scotland and I soon became FB friends with her. Recently I learned she had a few copies left of her earlier book, Emotional Geology, so I bought one. I don't know how many U.S. readers are familiar with Gillard's work, but I would encourage anyone who likes a deep love story (as opposed to what we all call romance) to find either of these books and read them.Warning though, Emotional Geology is an intense experience. It's the story of Rose Leonard, a woman who has been hospitalized after breaking up with her lover of five years. He has left her for another woman and a less complicated life. Gavin was a mountain climber and Rose remembers how he loved climbing more than her, and how she was left behind to worry herself sick every time he took on another climbing challenge. She has a daughter who was a teenager at the time Gavin lived with them. Megan's point of view is different. She loved Gavin and saw him as her protector and the strong man who took care of her mother. You see, Rose is bipolar which has robbed Megan of her childhood.Rose moves alone to an island a distance off of Scotland where the weather is harsh but there are no mountains except on a distant island. She is an artist and finds it impossible to work when she takes the dose of medications her doctor has ordered. They make her feel like a zombie. But she can't live without them either, so she tries to live on a smaller dose and pursue her textile art in quiet privacy. Close neighbors become friends, especially Calum, a man with a past that makes him drink a bit too much. However, he's a poet and he's a successful schoolteacher as well. You can see where this is going. I loved Calum and suffered along with him in his trials and tribulations with Rose's illness. Megan comes for a visit which stirs things up to a boiling point.The setting is bleak according to Megan, but Rose finds it beautiful. She sees the different colors and textures in the landscape and the sea. Since I'm pretty much of a loner myself, the island and the cottage Rose lives in appealed to me. I did have to put the book aside occasionally; the emotional storm of Rose and Calum's relationship was hard to bear.In short, I will keep this one and I may even go back to reread it sometime which is something I never, ever do.
    • 5/5
      Rose Leonard has moved to North Uist, a Hebridean island off the west coast of Scotland, to start afresh after having a mental breakdown. There she meets Calum, a man as deeply flawed as she is, although she doesn't realise this at first, as she is so absorbed in her own feelings. Slowly she comes to realise that she is not the only person to have experienced tragedy and hurt.Without giving anything away, there is a part of Calum's story that made me cry and was so very moving. This is the third Linda Gillard book that I have read (having read them in reverse order) and I love them all so much. The writing in Emotional Geology was superb, and interesting with the change between first and third person, which worked very well.I came away with such strong feelings from this book that it left its effect on me for a while after reading it. I heartily recommend this author. I loved her descriptions of North Uist too.
    • 5/5
      I almost didn't read this book, being put off by the publisher's slogan on the back cover: "great books for grown women". There's nothing wrong with having a target market, but target too heavily and the book industry will not only do less business but will also likely deter many people from reading good work that the might enjoy. Whilst the back cover put me off somewhat, the front cover imagine of a solitary tree, a loch and a mountain profile had the opposite effect. This is the sort of country us townies tend to think of when we dream of escaping from the urban jungle. It is country like this - more specifically North Uist in the Western Isles - to which the central character retreats in an effort to escape from the wreckage of a long standing relationship and the terrible consequences it had for her own mental health. The overall structure of the book is probably very much of its kind, in other words it is probably not giving too much away to say there is a happy ending, but there are a couple of unexpected twists towards the conclusion. I cared about the characters, I like the setting, the emotion and the poetry, and I found it a more appealing depiction of the climbing community and its obsessiveness than some other novels I have read recently.
    • 4/5
      Geology, according to the dictionary, is "the science that treats of the origin and structure of the earth, including the physical forces which have shaped it and its physical and organic history..." (Funk & Wagnalls, pg. 268).  Geology of a different kind, that of looking at the emotional forces which shape the heart and soul, is the focus of Linda Gillard's novel, Emotional Geology.Emotional Geology is the story of Rose, a textile artist suffering from bipolar disorder, who is trying to recover from the devastating effects of a broken relationship.  Following a hospital stay, she knows within herself that the only way she can possibly heal is to seek solitude, return to her work, and become chemically independent.  She finds herself in a cottage on the island of Uist.  It is here where she fights to put her past behind her while putting the pieces of her life back into place, not realizing just how much she needs the help and love of others in order to accomplish this.  She becomes a collaborator with her neighbor's brother, Calum, who teaches poetry.  They decide to put their creative talents together in an exhibition of textile art with companion poetry pieces.  The collaboration/friendship seems destined to move in the direction of a new relationship, but both Rose and Calum have private battles to overcome before that is possible.  It is through these battles that the emotional geology is forged.I really enjoyed Emotional Geology.  I liked the descriptions of the Scottish islands and their inhabitants.  I learned about the thrills and dangers of mountain climbing.  I loved exploring the textures of the quilts through their descriptions.  But what impressed me the most, though, were the characters.  Ms. Gillard allows them to be believeable.  In Rose we see an insecure, almost middle-aged woman struggle for her emotional and physical survival.  She has difficulty with relationships, even with that of her adult daughter.  Not all mother/daughter relationships in real life are those of best friends, and it is refreshing to see this portrayed in fiction.  In Calum we see a man who has plenty of emotional struggles of his own, which he tends to drown quietly in alcohol.  Rose and Calum are like real people - neither is perfect.  Yet their strengths and weaknesses play well off each other.Emotional Geology is good fiction.  It is creative, insightful, and most importantly, believeable.
    • 5/5
      Every once in a while, I read a book that makes me identify with several components in that book; so that I am touched by it in different ways. “Emotional Geology” by Linda Gillard is such a book.“Emotional Geology” is about Rose, a textile artist who moves to a remote area along the coast of the United Kingdom. Rose is trying to emotionally escape from events in her past. However, she meets Calum, a man younger than herself. Their friendship and strong attraction towards each other causes Rose to realize she still needs to deal with her past; while discovering that Calum is also haunted by events in his own past. We gradually learn what has happened with these two, while waiting to find out whether Rose and Calum will be able to put it all behind them in order to have a successful relationship together.Rose is a textile artist (as I am; although I’m not a renowned one); and Calum is a poet who is also a school teacher. In addition to exploring what they mean to each other, they agree to collaborate with each other — Rose designs and makes some textile art to go along with some of Calum’s poems. Additionally, Rose struggles with bipolar disorder. One passage has Rose recalling what she has been told by a doctor:“You will survive. You will grow as a result of all this. I’ve seen it happen many times. Your illness is a terrible gift. It makes you see things differently, it makes you create. Without it you probably would not be an artist, a maker. And if you didn’t make things, who would you be? After all, isn’t that the reason you stopped taking your medication? “This isn’t meant to imply that all people with bipolar are artistic, or that all artistic people are bipolar. Rather, I see this as meaning that if the artistic aspect is taken away from Rose’s personality, she greatly misses it. Incidentally, I have a cousin with bipolar disorder (although probably a more severe case than Rose’s); so I thought of her as I was reading this book.I really enjoyed the development of the relationship between Rose and Calum. Even though they both have demons haunting them and they each have obvious faults, they find a passionate love and admiration for each other.
    • 5/5
      Although rocks have always symbolized stability, in fact to a geologist what they show is change. Over time, mountains push up from the earth, mesas and buttes are formed, striations appear, arroyos are carved out, and the shapes metamorphose. But all this takes a very long time. In Gillard’s first novel, Emotional Geology, she weaves a story of emotional healing into the contoured landscape that plays such a large role in the lives of its inhabitants. The process of healing, like the process of geological formation, is many-layered, slow, and inexorable. And with both, the surface must be penetrated to discover the secrets within. The smooth rock face that you see from far off is revealed to have fractures and fissures when you get close. And the stony exterior may conceal the sparkling essence of a precious gem. On a remote isle of Uist, west of the coast of Scotland, Rose Leonard comes to live and try to rebuild her sanity after the betrayal of her lover Gavin and her subsequent mental breakdown. Diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder, she seeks the tranquility and isolation of the Hebrides Isles where she can feel more in control. She sets up a workroom for her textile art and balances the intrusiveness of bad memories with the onslaught of sea and wind and weather. Through her textiles she looks for patterns to anchor and explain her feelings.Among her new neighbors is a handsome poet, Calum, who is also a technical rock climber like Gavin was. Now Calum only climbs in summers on the Isle of Skye, and otherwise teaches school and writes poems. There is a sadness about him; a forced gaiety; but he remains as silent as stone. He and Rose are drawn to each other, and to the ways in which their text and textures complement each other. They plan a joint exhibit of their work.As their relationship grows, they both realize they cannot rush the geologic-like process of healing from their previous heartbreaks. Together, they struggle to help each other break through the carapaces they have built up around themselves. They count on time and nature to reshape them, even as it remolds the mountains of their island.Evaluation: Although this book does not exhibit the polish of Gillard’s later work, it is nevertheless astounding in its ability to capture the reality of people and behavior and emotions. The dialogue seems honest and true, like the characters. You don’t want to leave them when the book is over, because these are people just like your friends and family, who have strengths and weaknesses that seem familiar. There is definitely emotional pain in this book, but there is a lot of humor and a lot of the complex ropy entanglements of love as well. Gillard's books are not light summer reading; they have more gravitas; they are enduring. Highly recommended.