In 1870, while France and Prussia are at war, an English ship is wrecked on the coast of France and a stranger enters the lives of a village family. Elisa Gagnon is married to the man bent on salvaging the wrecked Lady Morgan at any cost; her daughter Janik sees angels, but her father would rather see her married than enter the convent; Alan Bridges arrives among them with an unknown past and suspicious intentions. When a ruinous triangle develops between these three, they are forced to choose between their allegiances – emotional, spiritual, and political – and their desires.

“Everything is handsomely pieced together, moving inexorably toward the end, without being contrived… it assumes the same kind of beauty as whitecaps on the sea.”
“…could make a tremendously moving film.”
The Georgia Straight

“The Turning is perhaps most compelling because, throughout the book, Holdstock is a master of understatement. Guiding the reader through shipwreck and revolution, she holds back details that could otherwise make this story too much like a made-for-TV movie with tragedy at each turn.
… The effect is powerful, and leaves the reader with much to chew on.”
Monday Magazine

“The Turning is Pauline Holdstock’s fifth book of fiction, her fourth novel. With it, she proves herself to be an expert in the form…{She} has been very successful at creating a novel that interweaves character and historical setting… such a novel of vivid characters, passionate action and dramatic setting really begs to be made into a sweeping period film, one in which Demi Moore must not be allowed to star.”
Prairie Fire

“The Turning is written lace, each line carefully hooked into place. Pauline Holdstock’s style is disciplined and refined, yielding a painterly novel of emotions and vividly drawn characters, yet firmly controlling even the most passionate scenes…
History provides the denouement of the story and the unravelling of all their lives. Destinies unfold in deft plot turns, as Paris rolls and sways in a storm of class warfare. And the writing retains its strength of style, gaining pace and tension in the dangerous web of the ungoverned city… Delicately written, skillfully constructed, The Turning is elliptical when needed, passionate when the story requires it. Pauline Holdstock is a writer we should be hearing more about.”
Herizons

“Lyrical. Brutal. Life affirming.”
Hundred Mile Review

Turning, The
Author: Pauline Holdstock
258 pages | 5.5 x 8.5 trade paperback
1996
Fiction
ISBN 921586531