The binding is a mystical story where people can relay their misdeeds to a book binder. This is someone with special powers to relieve people of anything they wish to forget and place them in a book. I found it a strange novel, although I did read to the end and appreciate others would enjoy more than me.

This was a little of a rollercoaster book for me, in that the blurb -is- pretty misleading when it comes to the expectations it rises—so there were quite a few chapters when my interest ebbed and flowed, as I poised between “this is not what I wantedto read” and “that’s pretty interesting” and “I expected something different in terms of world-building”, etc. Especially, there’s a romance element that is -not- in the blurb, and since I’m not a big fan of romance for the sake of romance in general, my first reaction was pretty much ‘ugh, no, not yet another romance plot, you should’ve warned me about this, since I don’t feel like reading romance these days’.

However, as everything settled, as the plot fully came together, as I got to know the characters more, this change of mood abated, and I found that I was actually liking this novel. I do regret that the art of binding wasn’t explored more in depths, with deeper explanations of how it worked, and this is something that disappointed me until the end. Still, I nevertheless felt myself rooting for several characters, getting angry at how other people treated them, didn’t accept them, at the rampant intolerance, too. It wasn’t ‘enjoyable’ (I so wanted to slap the parents), no. The main characters were often annoying in many ways, too. But it made for a good story.

I must say that I usually have several pet peeves when it comes to romance (yes, there’s some romance in it), one of the major ones being when the lovers lose sight of priorities (typical example: “who will she chose, the boy she loves, or saving the world?” --> everybody knows that 99% of the time, the world is doomed). Here, there is strong potential for turning these characters’ world(s) upside down, but I didn’t get that feeling of thwarted sense of priorities, because all in all, most characters had bleak prospects to start with, and what hinged on them was something that wouldn’t have made so many other people happy anyway: arranged marriages, bad job prospects, abuse, cannot go back to their old lives, etc.

Speaking of abuse, the world Emmett lives in is rather bleak in that regard as well. It reminded me a lot—and that was no doubt on purpose o nthe author’s part—of 19th century novels, with a strong country/town dichotomy: the countryside as a ‘pure, natural, innocent’ world where people have a chance to be happy, vs. the town as polluted, home to crime and vice, and where the wealthy treat servants and poorer people in general as dirt, as toys that can be broken and then mended at will. While the abuse is not depicted in gory ways, and usually alluded to rather than directly witness, the allusions are not veiled either. It is very clear who rapes their servants, and who gets others murdered for the sake of their own interests. Those aren’t triggers for me, but they could still be depending on the reader. All in all, that also reminded me of other literary movements of that time: there’s no shortage of showing people being sick, reduced to their ‘bodily functions’, shown as the cowards they are, and so on. If you’ve read Zola, you’ll know what I mean. This novel doesn’t sing the praises of human beings in general, for sure, and shows most people as being weak at best, and hidden monsters at worst.

I am… bizarrely satisfied with the ending. It’s fairly open, and there are still many loose ends, but it also allows the book to close on a kind of resolution that I found fitting, balancing between “it could still turn so sour so quickly” and “well, there’s hope left and the future looks kinda good”.

Conclusion: 3.5 stars

It is hard to describe this exquisitely written novel without giving too much of the story away. I came to it with no knowledge of the author and no prior expectations, and I was utterly intrigued and captivated by the first few pages. The author is clearly a master storyteller and has woven together her story and chief characters with great imagination and originality. Suffice it to say that although a relationship of love stands at the centre, there is rich exploration of the main characters, and what has made them who they are them and what continues to form them along the way.

From the beginning we feel the pain of young Emmett Farmer, on whom a terrible and mysterious ‘illness’ has fallen such that he can no longer function as the strong older son on his parents’ farm and has to be sent away as an apprentice to a bookbinder. But this is not bookbinding as we know it, the simple sewing of papers together, however beautifully crafted; this is much deeper and more mysterious, as the binder binds people’s dreadful memories into their own book and stores them away where they can no longer cause them pain. But that’s assuming the bookbinder is a person of integrity and we soon find our that not all are ….

Beautiful – but not just a pretty piece of prose; rather, a captivating story at the centre to hold the reader’s attention and lead us on as we must find out what happens to the people we’ve been made to care about so much. An extraordinary novel.

Brilliant plot, excellent main characters that you invest in. I read this book in one sitting and I would highly recommend it.

This book was not what I expected from the blurb. I had mixed thoughts after finishing it and had to mull it over for a while before posting my review.

Pros: I love the concept of people having their bad memories removed and stored in a book, and I was intrigued by the way that others exploited that. The characters are well written and you become invested in their relationships.

Cons I wish that the exploitation angle had been explored more. I would have liked to have known more about the book collectors and the people who choose to have their memories removed.

Overall: When exploring the memory removal, the book works well. When exploring the love story, the book works well. When combining the two, the book becomes unlike anything you have read before.

I really wanted to love this book as the concept is intriguing and the production design is stunning. But it just wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. I found it quite slow-paced. Also I expected it to be more of a fantasy story rather than a tale of forbidden love.

Oh, this wonderful, wonderful book. Where to begin. If I’m completely honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect or whether it was going to be a book that was my thing or not. But the whole bookbinding element was most definitely enough to tempt me into trying it and I was bowled over by the complexity and the cleverness of this story.

The Binding begins with us following Emmett Farmer as he becomes the apprentice to a very old bookbinder called Seredith. She lives in the marshes, well away from the farm where Emmett’s parents and sister, Alta, live and where Emmett works the land.

These are no ordinary books though. These are people’s memories, sucked out of them so they can no longer remember. Ultimately, the idea is to take away the bad memories and the guilt but it can be misused, memories stolen for titillation, for the amusement of others. There are even fake books called novels. However, those with a true vocation, like Emmett, do it right, not for profit. The catalyst for parts two and three of the book is when Emmett finds a book with his own name on. From there we remember Emmett’s past along with him and I must admit that I found that section the most beguiling.

The whole of The Binding is most beautifully written. The prose is perfect and I was thoroughly absorbed by it. I loved Emmett as he’s such a kind and strong person, struggling with his feelings at first. All of the characterisations are fabulous. I hated the people I was meant to hate and loved the ones I was meant to love. All are so well-drawn, so perfectly formed.

And that story. It’s so incredibly clever. I am in awe of Bridget Collins and the story that her mind has conjured up. It has a slight hint of fantasy (obviously, people can’t really take your memories and bind them up into books) but it has such plausibility, such possibility. It’s a little bit frightening too – imagine your deepest, darkest secrets getting into the wrong hands.

The most powerful part of this book is a love story though and it’s stunning in every way. I experienced it all along with the characters: the realisation, the denial, the highs and lows, the intensity, the loss, the joy.

The Binding is something special, a book that will stay with me. If I didn’t have masses of other books to read I would be tempted to go back to the beginning and read it again. It’s going to be huge in 2019.

This is a rather fascinating imaginary world. Emmett buys a book at a fair and his father reacts as if he has brought something evil into the house and gets rid of it. A few years later, a woman who is a binder of books asks for Emmett to be apprenticed to her and to his confusion, his parents hand him over to his fate.

The world building unfolds slowly in this, allowing the reader to gradually get used to the beliefs and attitudes of the people and learn what it means to be bound in a book. A lot of superstition and outright fear surrounds the occupation of binding, yet Emmett is told that he was born to be a binder. Exactly what that means is revealed to the reader at the same time that it is explained to Emmett.

On his first solo binding, Emmett has no idea what he is meant to do. He also has reason to object to the assignment, yet what is entailed and why he was predicted to be a binder born soon becomes clear.

One thing that was unique about this book (apart from the entire concept) was that I actually changed my opinion about a character. After not liking Lucien for a long time, a side of him came out that made me more sympathetic. The action speeds up in the second half of the book and I actually got so engrossed into what would happen next, despite present tense writing in part three throwing me out of the story every time I started a new chapter, that I stayed up late, unable to put it down.

My one complaint is that the ending was rather abrupt. I wanted to know what happened to Emmett and Lucien after the events of those last chapters. I don't know whether a second book is planned. If it is I will probably read it and hope it holds my interest as well as this one did!

I loved that story, beautiful, sensitive and really original. my only regret is the lack of smooth transition between the different parts, i found it hard to link them together. however the end makes it better.

Set in England, in what feels likes the past, Emmett Farmer is summoned to work as a apprentice for an elderly book binder Seredith. When he arrives, it’s clear that his recent sickness has been caused by him being born a binder and the fever that comes with it. Seredith starts to teach him the way of binding books, where books are no longer fiction but are people’s memories that they’ve chosen to forget. Pain and suffering can be erased and bound within the pages. Beautifully written, The Binding is incredibly original and I wasn’t sure where the story was going but I couldn’t put it down.

Wow ! What an amazing , magical and unusual book - I loved the sound of it as soon as I heard about it. It follows the story of Emmett who is sent to be an apprentice as a Binder where he is to learn the art of hiding peoples memories by binding them in books. The story is so unusual and has many twists to it that make it even more exciting to read. Once I had read it I couldn't stop thinking about it. Loved it!

I did enjoy this book – the central love story was very well done, as was the portrayal of class structure and social expectations – but I felt that the fantasy angle had not been fully thought through. The book is in three parts – the first two narrated by the main character, and the third by another central character. The fantasy aspect is generally confined to the first and last parts, with the middle section almost free to be a straightforward, but beautifully told love story.
The fantasy revolves around books – and to my dismay – not in a positive way. In this world, books are regarded with suspicion and fear. This is because real books are the real memories sucked out of a person’s mind by a bookbinder and written on the pages, leaving the person with no ability to recall the extracted memories. The theory is that people can get rid of particular memories that are too painful to live with.
Supposedly, a binder can only bind the memories of a willing person, but it is not clear whether this is a legal requirement, or an actual curb on the abilities of the binders. In the book, very few of the people who were bound, were bound of their own free will. They verbally had to agree to the binding, but was that permission freely given. Most were coerced – by an employer, husband, by threats to their loved ones … Or the binding was an act of desperation due to poverty, with a life-time of memories being the last thing for sale.
When a witness or victim can no longer remember the crime, then the perpetrator goes free. And because the bound person cannot remember they have been bound, the crime can be committed over and over again: crime, binding, crime, binding, crime, …. Until there is nothing left of the bound person’s mind.
An ethical binder keeps safe all the books they have bound, never to be read by another person. But there is a market for real books – desired for the vicarious thrill of witnessing a bound person’s worst nightmares, or simply for the secrets they contain. But the books are safe only so long as the ethical binder remains alive and in control.
The binding made me very uneasy. It brought to mind the implications of consent and morality in euthanasia and rape. Your life, your maturity, your learning from experiences, your education, are all intimately connected to your memories – the good, the bad and the indifferent. If you lose even part of your memories you lose part of your soul, part of what makes you you. Suppressing a memory is quite different to binding. A suppressed memory might return one day, and is in the person’s subconscious control – a bound memory never should return, and is forever outside the person’s knowledge or command.
I felt that most of the characters in the book gave only lip-service to the (im)morality involved with the binding – except when it directly affected them and their family. Books are burned, murders are committed and instigated, but after a moment’s regret, it is all ok, because the character needs it to be.
So, an interesting, but essentially disconcerting, premise. Some excellent characterisation, and good story telling, but not an easy or comfortable read.

I have no real clue how to categorise this or describe it, but this book is absolutely wonderful!

Emmett lives with his family on a farm. He's trying to pull his weight with the physically demanding work, but he has been ill and can't really remember a dark, feverish period of his life. A mysterious letter arrives asking for him to be an apprentice to a binder, a woman living in a remote area who is widely considered to be a witch. With no real choice in the matter, Emmett takes his place in the binding workshop, learning the secrets and skills of transferring memories to paper. But things aren't as they seem and the world of bookbinding has those who abuse their power over people's minds.

I really don't want to give any more of the story away because I think one of the reasons I enjoyed it was because I did not quite know what to expect. I'm not even really sure what category I would place this in - the setting feels historical, but also like a parallel world in which books have mysterious power. It certainly isn't my usual genre, but I absolutely loved it. The novel is beautifully written and hugely imaginative - I read it in a day, which is fairly unusual for me.

The only criticism I have is that I found it quite difficult to imagine the physical appearance of the characters. Scenes and emotions in the novel are written in great and absorbing detail, but I just wanted to be able to see the characters in my mind. A small niggle for me!

However, this is a lovely and engaging novel. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to read something a bit different. It is not at all what I expected, but was a pleasant surprise.

I was drawn to this book as being a book lover reading about the making of books is a joy and even more so when a mystery is attached – can you think of anything better? Of course not!

Bookbinding the actual putting together of books is explored in a fascinating way through this story. This is no handbook on the making of books, although there are snippets, rather this is about the gathering of the content, the story.

As we meet and come to know Emmett the mystery unravels. It is indeed more than one mystery – how is the story gathered and what has happened to Emmett? He has been ill and isn’t as strong as he was and so cannot work in the fields as well as he did anymore but when he overhears his parents arguing one day he realises he is being sent away. So begins his work in bookbinding. He becomes apprenticed and his mentor slowly introduces him to his new life. We know that there is something about Emmett that meant he was bound to be a bookbinder. As this intriguing story gently unfolds you are drawn in more and more. It is when his mentor becomes ill that the story really gets going and when we get to the section, which is almost a prologue, you really start to grasp what has happened and become totally gripped.

Bridget Collins brings to life the bleakness of the landscape and those who inhabit it, she adds a little intrigue and mystery and gives us a story in which you can become truly immersed. It is a ‘slow burner’ so stick with it as it is a fascinating, well crafted story that is certainly worth reading.

With thanks to The Borough Press via NetGalley for an eCopy of The Binding by Bridget Collins. All thoughts are my own, I have not received any payment for the review of this book.

A very enjoyable read. This book took me in a totally different direction from the one I was expecting, which was extremely pleasing.The multiple narrators worked really well too and you can never go wrong when there’s a truly monstrous character lurking the pages. It became more compelling the further I got into it - I read the final 50% of the book in one evening!

If you could have all of your bad experiences taken out of your memories by having them written down and bound into a book would you do it? Even though it would take away a little bit of what makes you you? The process is open to misuse and well to do wrongdoers use it to get away with abuse by wiping their victims memories. This dark and beautifully written tale is captivating and thought provoking.

This is an absolute must read for anyone who loves books. The most magical, beautiful storyline. 5 stars!

A thoroughly enjoyable book. Not my type of reading material normally, but was given the chance by Netgalley to read and review it. Took me a while to get into the story, but after a few chapters I was hooked. A delightful story and had to keep reading to find out how the story would end. Would recommend.

This is a book I requested late because almost everybody on Twitter was raving about it.  Of course,  my request wasn't approved till after the publication date so I didn't feel any obligation to read it overly quickly.  This is a difficult book to review, as I really want to avoid spoilers.

This is a dark fantasy set in an alternative England.  It is also at heart, a love story, but not a conventional one. Told in three parts and three first-person accounts, the first and second being from Emmett Falmer, a young man who in the first book seems to be suffering from a form of mental illness.  He is apprenticed to an elderly bookbinder who lives in the marshes.   Books in this world are not the same innocent objects that they are in ours.  Over the first account, we discover as Emmett does what the bookbinding job entails.  I am not going to tell you, even though the full blurb does, as I enjoyed the slow reveal as the story progresses.

  The second part is also from Emmett but reveals what happened to him before the first account and the reasons for his mental health issues. This part is the key around witch, the whole book revolves.  It is very firmly set in within the farming community. Here we see the socioeconomic divide between the rural and urban lives.  It also becomes much darker, there are stories of evil men who will use their wealth and the bookbinder's gift to their own ends and others expense.

The third part we hear the voice of Lucien Darnay, a young man who features in both of Emmett's accounts.  Lucien is the son of a self-made factory owner.  His father is considered new money and looked down on by the old money families.  He is not a happy man, through the majority of the book, he doesn't care for himself and drinks too much.  He is a tortured soul very and very much oppressed by his father's heavy hand.

My only criticism of this book is that for the first 50% of the book, I really didn't like Emmett.  I found him arrogant, annoyingly aggressive and very proud, with no reason to be.  He did grow on me as I saw him through another's eyes but if the intriguing plot didn't keep me interested, I may have been tempted to put the book down.

So to sum up, a dark fantasy, and a romance with a twist.  To be avoided if you are a sensitive or prejudiced reader but otherwise a wonderful hybrid between historical fiction and magical realism.

REVIEW TO BE PUBLISHED 21ST OF MARCH

Firstly I have to say that the cover for this book is absolutely gorgeous, I read an e-version and it even looked lovely on my kindle.

The story itself was hugely enjoyable even if it wasn’t exactly what I had expected from it. I went into this book expecting a ‘traditional’ fantasy novel, what it actually was tended more towards magical realism.

The characterisation in this novel was its major strong point. Emmett particularly pulled me in and sparked my curiosity. I needed to know his story, he was fragile, stubborn, sheltered, hard working and stronger than he knew. His capacity to love was in itself loveable.

I would have loved to see more of the binding process itself. As a system of ‘magic’ it was intriguing and not an idea I’d come across before. I wanted to experience more of it and felt that if anything was missing from this book then it was that element.

Overall this was an interesting and gripping novel, but with a little less ‘fantasy’ than I expected.