I really struggled with this, I just couldn't get into the writing style and found it far too choppy. Likewise I didn't like any of the characters so in the end I didn't finish it. Although I loved the concept and some of the ideas I just wasn't enjoying it.

A multilayered novel that took some getting to grips with.Andrew Garlieston is a man who loves doll almost to the point of obsession. He corresponds regularly to Bamber, a young women incarcerated in an asylum in Cornwall. He decides to set off on a journey to visit her. His journey stop points All bear some significance to him. As he travels he reads short stories by Bambers favourite author, Eva Chaplain and these intersperse the story and his continued correspondence with Bamber.
A challenging read with an interesting style that may take some perseverance to engage fully with the text

The Dollmaker by Nina Allan was a revelation. I knew nothing of the author and her style of writing before starting this and ended up being pleasantly surprised by loving this book. It’s the story of Andrew Garvie and his letters to and from the mysterious Bramber Winters. The highlight for me were the inclusion of the rather dark fairytales which seemed to follow the course of Andrew Garvies own reality. An absolute gem!

The Dollmaker takes us on a journey, following the budding pen-pal relationship between Andrew and Bramber, both doll collectors and enthusiasts. Andrew lives in London, making dolls for a living after developing a passion for them when he was a boy. Bramber is a live-in patient at West End House, an institution located in an isolated part of Cornwall. They develop a bond over their mutual interest of a former doll maker, Ewa Chaplin, who also wrote dark, atmospheric short stories, which are featured throughout the book. Andrew decides that he should visit Bramber, and embarks on a leisurely journey to Cornwall, passing through a number of towns and cities on his way, where he contemplates his life and journey. Allan has created a fairy tale, albeit a very slow moving one, with strange coincidences cropping up that blur the edges of reality just slightly, giving a fantasy element to the story.

A strange book that is difficult to pin down, The Dollmaker by Nina Allan is unlike anything I have read before. It opens by introducing us to the doll maker, Andrew Garvie, a man of diminutive stature who has had a fascination with antique dolls since childhood, and who now creates his own meticulously. When he answers a personal ad in one of his trade magazines, he begins a correspondence with Bramber, a young woman living in an institution who share his love of dolls, but has a mysterious past. Andrew gets it into his head that he needs to rescue Bramber, and begins on a journey to the institute without telling her. To pass the time along the way he reads a collection of short stories written by yet another doll maker, Ewa Chaplin. These strange tales are recounted within the book and seem to carry echoes of the people and events in Andrew's life.
It's a strange and strangely interesting book, about strange people, and as I said unlike anything I have read before. I found it hard to put down, as I tried to put together the three narratives , but in the end the author does manage to weave them together successfully.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

Firstly, I adore this novel. But I will be honest here, I nearly abandoned this novel a couple of times early on. It has an unusual structure, and before I do any research, I’m unsure at to why it is this way and what purpose it serves, and if for any other reason but a demonstration of the author’s ability to write about almost anything and remain captivating. The Dollmaker follows Andrew Garvie, a most peculiar man who is fascinated with dolls, who answers an ad from Bramber Winters, a most peculiar woman who is also fascinated with dolls, seeking to find out more about Ewa Chaplin, a maker of dolls and writer of curious short stories. Thus follows the correspondence between Andrew and Bramber, who reveals she has been living for numerous years at the mysterious West End House, a place full of characters, which she is free to leave but doesn’t. Still, Andrew sets out on a journey to ‘rescue’ her – his words – and on the way intermittently reads Ewa Chaplin’s short stories, of which we are treated to, the first at which served as my first episode of ‘can I be bothered to read this?’. Confession: I skipped through the first short story, as after a couple of pages it wasn’t grabbing me, but I read the others that followed, and thought they were wonderful little eerie nuggets of oddness. It’s interesting to read stories and to then hear a character in the novel’s thoughts about them. Makes them feel a little more real. Was that the point of the stories? Who knows.

The ‘A love story about becoming real’ on the front shouldn’t put off anyone, who, like me, would rather not read love stories, as I think this novel sits more within literary fiction than romance, such is its focus on character development and interesting structure of stories within stories within stories. (A novel is only literary fiction if it is absolutely totally bloody baffling, right?)

I find this book extremely lovely, in the way that it explores characters who to the rest of the world are oddities, misfits, who find a missing connection with each other, and the beauty of them blooming when it happens. We learn more about their lives prior to their current situations, but I get the feeling that it is for context, not explanation, the suggestion that people don’t need reasons for their quirks and the things that make them them, just the freedom to express all that they are.

I wanted the ending to be muddlingly weird, for there to be an epic case of false or mistaken identity, or for one of the main characters to even not exist at all, perhaps even a doll or two to come alive and go on a rampage, but then again, I am as weird as the characters in this book. I won’t give anything away, except that the ending is touching, and provides many answers. Perhaps other readers will be able to pick up even more of them.

5 stars.

The Dollmaker was published by riverrun on 4th April 2019. Thank you to riverrun for the ARC

The Dollmaker is award-winning author Nina Allan's third novel and being the epitome of strange it rather defies classification or categorisation. I have always been drawn to weird or absurdist fiction so this was right up my street. It follows protagonist Andrew who fondly remembers falling in love with a doll, Marina Blue, when he was just a boy leading to his lifelong passion for dolls. He strikes up a friendship with another doll aficionado, a woman who he hopes could be interested in a relationship with him. There are three strands to the plot: Andrew's story, his communication with penpal and possible future partner Bramber and a series of quite creepy fairytales (think Brothers Grimm) which are interspersed throughout.

Allan's writing flows beautifully making it very easy to read it in a single sitting, however, I did find Andrew's journey was a little too slow and drawn out; that is merely a minor point and is, of course, subjective. She writes about neglect and wrongdoing in an engaging manner and you can't help but feel for each of the characters. It's a stark reminder that the way we are brought up can often shape us as people. It meanders at quite a slow pace and has an unusual structure, but once you becomes accustomed to it all it is difficult to put down. This is a very odd novel that will not be for everyone, but those who enjoy offbeat fiction with a dark fairytale vibe will be able to find aspects to love in The Dollmaker.

Many thanks to riverrun for an ARC.

I was so happy when this book was approved. I liked the blurb and I loved the cover (I know you can't judge a book by the cover).
I started the book and I loved the style of writing and was fascinated by the story.
I was waiting for something to happen, but it was like reading a travelogue with some stories and letters in between. Nothing seems to happen and I was bored.
I skimmed the book to the end and something happened but it wasn't memorable.
It's not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to Quercus Books and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

A novel of dolls, dwarves, and doppelgängers for those who enjoyed Laura Purcell's The Silent Companions and Jessie Burton's The Miniaturist.

When dollmaker Andrew Garvie falls in love with his pen-pal Bramber Winter, he sets out on a cross-country journey to rescue her from the remote asylum in which she dwindles. On the way he reads five dark fairy tales by Polish dollmaker Ewa Chaplin - stories which not only unsettle Andrew, but begin to exert their own influence on his actions. Essentially, this is a novel about the influence objects and people have on us.

Nina Allan’s The Dollmaker has elements of folklore, fantasy, and metafiction - and some rather startling illustrations of eyes which make it feel as if the book is watching you. Andrew’s train journey is the framing narrative in which nestle Bramber’s letters to Andrew describing life at the institution, and the short stories Andrew reads en route. In the second half of the book, these three narratives echo and distort each other well, but I found there was so much chopping and changing in the first half that an essential rhythm was only late established. For me the character of Andrew came to life in the Clark Cannings scene and from this point on I enjoyed the novel.

I didn’t get in with this. I didn’t like the stories within a story and I was a bit bored by the letters. I did enjoy the narrative of the main character, but there wasn’t enough of it to make up for the bits I didn’t like. The premise was good - I was intrigued by the dolls and the relationship between the two characters. Not for me though, sorry.

This is one of the oddest books that I have read.

Andrew Garvie collects and makes dolls. He has a pen friend, Bramber, which is unusual enough in thi age of social media, and he decides that he is going to meet her, and rescue her from the mental asylum she lives in, in Cornwall.

On the way Andrew and Brambers story unfolds. As does their mutual admiration of a polish author Ewa Chaplin, whose short story’s form part of the novel.

The main problem for me is the journey from London to Cornwall is recounted, and Andrew and Brambers life journeys. Then, suddenly out of nowhere, an Ewa Chaplin story falls in and forms the plot. Then, just as suddenly when you are getting into the sub story, it jolts back to the Andrew-Bramber plotline.

Andrew and Bramber meet up, Andrew goes home. The story just ends.

I was left at the end thinking what? Really? But it is unusual as somehow the novel all folds together. The Ewa Chaplin short stories were brilliant. Andrew is a dwarf, and dwarfs feature within her plotlines. In fact I came away wishing Ewa Chaplin was a real person and I could download her short stories as I found they stayed with me longer than the Andrew-Bramber plotline.

Whilst this is not The Miniaturist, this is a book worth persevering with. Thank you to the publisher, and Netgalley for my advance ARC in return for an honest review.

It starts with an enigmatic personal ad in a doll collector's magazine:

INFORMATION WANTED ON THE LIFE AND WORK OF DOLLMAKER EWA CHAPLIN AND/OR FRIENDSHIP, CORRESPONDENCE. PLEASE REPLY TO: BRAMBER WINTERS.

Andrew Garvie makes exquisite antique dolls; unique, graceful and diminutive in size, just like him. When he makes contact with Bramber Winters, he is drawn into her life letter by letter. Bramber has lived a strange, sheltered life in an institution on Bodmin Moor, having survived terrible experiences as a child. Because Andrew also knows what it is like to feel trapped, the two form a close bond before Andrew eventually makes a plan to rescue Bramber. Andrew sets out through the old towns of England, reading the fairytales of Ewa Chaplin along the way. When the two meet, they must decide whether they are going to step out into the world - effectively come to life - or stay alone and still like their dolls.

Essentially The Dollmaker is a love story; a love story about two unusual people who, though they sometimes blur the lines of imaginary and truth, are very, very real. The relationship between the characters is both charming and original, and I love the magical feeling that seemed to swell and simmer around them.

The structure can be a bit problematic. Information on each of our character's stories is fed to you in short bursts, and is interspersed by macabre short stories written by Ewa, which broke up the flow just a little for me. Although these five tales act almost as short stories in themselves, they come at a time when you feel the narrative is gaining momentum, and this can draw on a reader's patience.

This is a novel of wonder and truth, partly fantastical but also about the mundane. The story is cleaver and elegant but also multi-layered in how it presents a disquieting, haunting atmosphere. It is subtly scary in parts, particularly with its use of dark fable-like imagery, but this only adds to the creepy magic that surround this novel.

An enchanting and often mesmerising read, I enjoyed my time with The Dollmaker. 3.5 stars.

This book took me by surprise for sure! It's an unexpected gem. Its writing was different, very complex and multi layered. It was hard work to be honest, but worth it in the end. It was one of those slow going tales that you need to take your time and enjoy.
It felt like almost consisting of short stories that added up to create the big picture. I see that some people give up at the beginning, but I'm glad I continued.
I loved Andrew and Bramber. I think the strongest part of this book was these charming characters. It was very atmospheric and I definitely enjoyed going through their stories.
I would read from the author again as I found it original.
Thanks a lot to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Nina Allen has penned a multi-layered book in The Dollmaker. I must confess that I was anticipating something along the lines of the Toy Makers and The Night Circus but there is no similarity whatsoever. The Dollmaker in question Andrew Garvie, is traced through childhood up to his career as a craftsman of collectible dolls. Thanks to a small personal advert in a doll making magazine Andrew embarks on a highly detailed trip from London to the West Country in a bid to rescue a fellow doll fanatic in the shape of a young lady, Bramber, who appears to be living in a hospital of some sort. To while away the journey Andrew starts to read a series of short stories written by another Dollmaker Ewa Chapman, who Bramber admires. These short stories begin to reflect circumstances and people whom Andrew knows. This book required so much concentration to read, and in fact I had to resort to writing notes on the plethora of characters, and in the end I was lost and unfortunately disengaged. Thanks to NetGalley and Quercus for the ARC.

Once again I have read a book that I enjoyed but didn’t love and once again I have read a book that felt comprised of two halves.
Now, when I say halves I don’t mean that I’m comparing the first half of the book to the second half. I mean that there were two things going on in this book; one I loved and one that I would consider ‘ok’.
The set up is that Andrew and Bramber are pen pals; both lonely and both with trauma in their pasts. They also both enjoy dolls, Andrew on a bit of a more serious level than Bramber, but it’s enough for them to make a genuine and quite sweet connection.
The complexity that comes in is that Andrew is a person of diminutive statue and Bramber is institutionalized. But that’s ok because Andrew has made it his mission to ‘rescue’ her. I say ‘rescue’ with quotes because actually Bramber doesn’t really need rescuing as she’s happy where she is.
Really this story is about Andrew’s journey to rescue himself.
The story is told in an interesting way which I did like. We get Andrew reflecting on his life as he travels through the country to get to Bramber and this is interspersed with the copies of the letters he has received from Bramber so we get a real sense of who she is as a person too.
Both their stories are tinged with a poignant sadness as both have suffered a variety of traumatic events during their lives. Yet somehow, despite this plot line being the bulk of the story it just feels a little lost.
We are looking back on their lives as they both move forward (Bramber emotionally and Andrew as he travels) but there is something that feels a little flat about this plot-line. Nothing much happens. Andrew reflects, he reads Bramber’s letters, he thinks about dolls, he steals a doll and he travels.
This part of the book is that bit that I consider ‘ok.’ Not bad but certainly nothing particularly riveting either. Their individual trauma’s don’t make an impact emotionally because they both just process it them as thoughts of the past and move on.
The other thing that Andrew does during his travels is read a copy of a book that Bramber sent him. This is a collection of short stories by a fictionalised author, Ewa Chaplin, and the tales resonate with Andrew because they feature something in some way that connects to him, Bramber or other people in their lives.
This element is interestingly sinister. Why are some of the fictional stories running parallel to Andrew’s life? Is there a reason behind it? Is it highlighting his own character? Is it foreshadowing something deadly in his nature?
I don’t know. That’s the answer to all the questions. I don’t know.
The stories exist for Andrew to occasionally remark, ‘how oddly pertinent’ (or similar) but there is no strong link, no consequence and no foreshadowing payoff. This is both frustrating (why include something with no payoff after building anticipation?) and confusing (why are they even there at all)?
But these short stories, also interspersed throughout the main story, are the best things about The Dollmaker. In fact I wish this whole book was just a collection of the bizarre, compelling and often macabre short stories instead of the story between Andrew and Bramber.
The main story felt like filler while the short stories took over the page. They are filled with people with dwarfism (like Andrew) and love and longing. There are acts of betrayal and violence and revenge. There’s sex and lust and the faint whispers of magic and fae folk that tantalizingly dangle out of sight. Is it magic or is it trickery? Are these stories contemporary fairy tales or mini horrors?
I don’t know but I didn’t need to know because I loved the short stories and the horrid and wonderful little worlds they showed.
It’s just such a shame that these were used to support an alright but pretty semi-bland main story when actually I feel like these could have been in a short story collection of their own.
The Dollmaker is an enjoyable book overall but I probably won’t remember the main plot in months to come while some of the short stories may continue to haunt me.

It took me over a month to finish this book - although once I’d tuned into the book’s style and pacing I raced through the final third or so - and I still don't really know what my opinion on it is.

As someone who needs continuous prose to get sucked in, the inserted fairytale-type stories by the fictional Ewa Chaplin are a distraction at first. While obviously connected to the main narrative, they take you out of it to explore a second fictional world.

The repetitive subjects of the fairytale - physical deformities, artists, alchemy, amber etc - serve a purpose as reflected in the primary story, but after so many go rounds of a story-within-a-story it gets a bit tiresome to keep reading through.

I did enjoy them once I got into the rhythm of them, though. However, I was expecting them - with their heavy metaphors - to bear some significance to the book’s ending, but they didn’t seem to.

The ending also left lots of questions unanswered about Bramber’s residence for me - doubts about its legitimacy crept into my mind throughout the book - and into the protagonist’s mind, briefly but no conclusion was met.

Overall, probably a 3.5/5.

DNFed this book as at the beginning a subject came up that I did not expect and that made me very unhappy and I found so unpleasant that it cancelled any further interest to continue reading this book. Trigger warnings for this book would have been very useful.

This book was rather different to what I was expecting, almost a book of short, fairytale-like stories making up the larger one. This clever and absolutely beautifully written book is perhaps a little difficult to get to grips with at first but I am so glad I persevered as the reward was certainly worth it.

I had never read any of Nina Allan’s books, but when I saw The Dollmaker on Twitter, there was just something about the cover that spoke to me, something in the blurb that drew me in, so I dashed to NetGalley and requested it. When I was approved I was over the moon! Then I started reading it, and to be perfectly honest: I thought I’d made a mistake in requesting The Dollmaker, that maybe it wasn’t one for me. But me being me, I decided not to count my chickens before they hatched and give it a fair try. Suddenly I looked up, 200 pages in, wondering where Sunday afternoon had gone to, and why on earth I’d had such reservations! In hindsight, I think I needed some time to get used to the writing style and to make sense of the story’s make-up.

The tale is threefold: it alternates between Andrew, Bramber and various short stories from the hand of Ewa Chaplin. We first meet Andrew when he’s a young boy encountering his first doll. Just like that, a passion is born and before long Andrew starts making dolls himself. Then we meet Bramber, a woman with a bit of a chequered past, who lives in a remote mansion in a remote area and puts out an ad to which Andrew responds and so they start communicating by letter. Andrew falls head over heels for Bramber and decides he has to meet her, save her, so from then on we follow Andrew on his journey to Bramber, whom we get to know through her letters to Andrew. While Andrew is on the road, he reads some enthralling short stories, little mini thrillers with murder and magic in them. I have to say, that first story confused me a little, what was it doing there?! Although the short stories are mentioned in the blurb I had thought they would be mentioned in passing throughout the book, not that there would be entire stories. However, I ended up positively adoring Ewa’s stories. I loved how they featured dwarfs and were linked to Andrew in that way because he has dwarfism himself. I found myself looking forward to another one whenever the narrative focussed on Andrew and Bramber for more than a few chapters. Although I also enjoyed those parts, mind; during the short stories I found myself wondering what would happen when Andrew finally met Bramber in real life, what would she make of him and his small stature and I was always eager to find out more about the enigmatic woman herself. I do feel the short stories might be a little too long for some readers: they really break up the Andrew-Bramber storyline and I think it might get confusing or annoying if you can only read a few pages at a time. But if you do like I did and read half the book in one sitting, you’ll have no problems with that!

I’m so happy I didn’t DNF this after the first chapters! I ended up thoroughly enjoying both the writing style and the narrative and if you like quirky tales that are just a little bit different from everything else, then you should definitely check this one out!

The Dollmaker is out on 4 April! Pre-order here.

Many thanks to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for the free e-ARC. All opinions are my own and I was not paid to give them.

https://lynns-books.com/2019/03/25/the-dollmaker-by-nina-allan/
The Dollmaker is s book that I have struggled to write a review for, on the one hand this is a complex story with beautiful writing that contains a series of fascinating smaller stories within, on the other hand it didn’t really work out well for me. I confess I have a strange fascination for books and films with dolls – probably because they scare me a little – and we all like a good scaring every now and again – well I do anyway. I think that this probably gave me unreasonable expectations of what this story would eventually become and that is totally my own fault – check out the synopsis below which is a very apt description and in no way whatsoever misleading. Basically, I led myself down the garden path with this one and so, to be absolutely clear, this is definitely a case of ‘it’s me not you’. If this sounds like your cup of tea then please don’t be put off by the fact that this wasn’t quite what I wanted it to be.

Stitch by perfect stitch, Andrew Garvie makes exquisite dolls in the finest antique style. Like him, they are diminutive but graceful, unique, and with surprising depths. Perhaps that’s why he answers the enigmatic personal ad in his collector’s magazine.

Letter by letter, Bramber Winters reveals more of her strange, sheltered life in an institution on Bodmin Moor, and the terrible events that put her there as a child. Andrew knows what it is to be trapped, and as they knit closer together, he weaves a curious plan to rescue her.

On his journey through the old towns of England, he reads the fairy tales of Ewa Chaplin–potent, eldritch stories which, like her lifelike dolls, pluck at the edges of reality and thread their way into his mind. When Andrew and Bramber meet at last, they will have a choice–to break free and, unlike their dolls, come to life.

A love story of two very real, unusual people, The Dollmaker is also a novel rich with wonders: Andrew’s quest and Bramber’s letters unspool around the dark fables that give our familiar world an uncanny edge. It is this touch of magic that, like the blink of a doll’s eyes, tricks our own.

This is a story of two people (Andrew and Bamber), both struggling a little, both lonely, who find each other through a personal ad in a magazine and become close following the exchange of many letters. Both are collectors of dolls and this shared interest creates a bond between the two. This is a story of self discovery for both.

Firstly, the things I really enjoyed about this book.

The writing is gorgeous. It’s evocative, it’s clever, it’s impressive. I loved that parts of the story were told through letters, I love this way of telling a tale.

The setting. Cornwall, I love Cornwall and have spent a lot of time there and so the settings were so interesting for me to read about.

The short stories within the main body. These were great – and very unexpected for me as I don’t make a secret of the fact that short stories are not really my thing so the fact that I couldn’t wait for the next one was something of a revelation. The short stories themselves are a collection of dark fairy tales written by a famous dollmaker, each of them seems to resonate personally and in fact share strange parallels with Andrew as he makes his way across Cornwall on his mission to rescue Bamber. I loved these stories and could easily have read more.

So, why didn’t this quite work out for me. I haven’t got any real criticisms as such. I think this is a strange combination of unrealistic expectations coupled with a story arc that ambled just a little too much for my own liking. I think the latter third of the book picked up the pace but reaching that point felt like it took quite a while and by that point my interest had waned.

I certainly don’t want to put anybody else off. This is a beautiful piece of work that unfortunately, and maybe it’s a mood thing, didn’t quite work out for me.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.