![]() ![]() This story of an older teenage Polly reliving her memories provides a frame narrative. ![]() It is this photograph that causes Polly to start remembering how she received that photograph, among with other things she shouldn't remember, things that have been buried in her memory for years now. ![]() As she is packing for a second year of college, nineteen-year-old Polly notices a photograph of burning bales of hay, entitled "Fire and Hemlock," in her room at her grandmother's house. The plot, however, is pretty simple and while reading it I tended to forget that Polly was reliving "forgotten" memories. How did this happen to Polly? What will she do about it, now that she knows that for the past four/five years she and everyone around her has erased the true past and gone on believing a lie? It's a really interesting premise, and I expected Jones to go more in depth with philosophical and big questions. Based on the synopsis provided, I expected a story that really focused on the mystery surrounding Polly's memories. ![]() The main issue I had with this story is how misleading the promotional blurb is. Unfortunately, Fire and Hemlock did not prove to be an enjoyable fantasy or an enjoyable "Tam Lin" retelling for me. Thus, when I saw that she wrote a retelling of "Tam Lin," I was happy to finally have the chance to read one of her novels. Although I consider myself a huge YA fantasy fan, I've never read anything by Diana Wynne Jones before. ![]()
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