A Drop Of Golden Sun by Kate Saunders

A Drop of Golden Sun by Kate Saunders

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There’s a point in one of my books where one character asks another if they’ve read any Kate Saunders and that’s because of two things: Beswitched, and also that everything in story is connected. At least, it is to me. I like to trace paths between stories, to feel the way that one author influences another, to trace the pulls from one narrative to another, and to kind of try to recognise that a little bit. Everything is part of everything else, all the stories touch.

I also gave Kate Saunders a shout out because Kate Saunders was really good and writing about her in the past tense makes me a little bit sad because we lost her far too soon but there is glory in what she left. A Drop Of Golden Sun was her final work, a love letter to film, to the seventies, to hot endless summers, and to the Sound of Music (though never explicitly named, the film in question is quite clearly inspired by this, all the way down to the lovely Julie Andrews and the Christopher Plummer-esque lead actors).

If you like Noel Streatfeild, then you should be on this. If you enjoy Jean Estoril, then you should also be on this. If you’re into rich character led stories where kind of nothing much happens in the way of Highly Dramatic Stuff but kind of everything happens if you let yourself see it and it’s just a pleasure to be part of it, to be here, you should be also also be on this. It’s incredibly elegant and classic storytelling, full of slow and soft character moments where people just kind of figure out who they are in the world and how they feel about it and there’s such a purity in that, it’s a delight all the way through, it’s the good stuff.

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