I cannot believe I have found a book to trump my all time favourite, Burial Rites by Hannah Kent BUT I have!

This book absolutely drew me In from the start. With a little feel of mystical realism and lots of historical fiction, you just cannot go wrong with this book or author!

I immediately bought The Sealwomans Gift by this author and I’m having the same ‘feels’ again.

Buy this!

Firmly set in time and the ground around Loch Katrine while it is being worked on by the engineers and navvies turning it into Glasgow's water supply. This engineering-fantasy tale floats gently across time and science held aloft by airy mystery and minute attention to detail. The twist in the tale reveals not an unreliable narrator just unreliable readers who can't see the obvious until they have to!

Not just for those interested in Glasgow's civic and civil engineering heritage or social history buffs but a must-read story for those who like spell-binding riveting reads.

this novel took awhile to get going and based on myth and real events , found that the latter part of the book more interesting but maybe that's just how I felt

I think maybe this book just wasn't for me. I found it extremely well-written, though the narrative jumps were occasionally a little confusing I mostly managed to keep track of what was happening. There was obviously a lot of love and research put into this story, and I felt that Sally Magnusson definitely seemed to know what she was talking about when it came to the setting and world-building. I think this would be a great choice for a historical fiction book club, but unfortunately it just didn't click with me. I needed something a little faster paced so I just struggled to get truly invested. Still, a very good book for the right reader and I don't regret picking it up.

This surprised me, I honestly didn't expect to like it as much as I did. The Ninth Child is a highlander story about history, folklore and humanity. It has the best of both worlds: Victorian era's brink of the industrial revolution with the fae folk, spirits and other legends and tall tales common in Sotland's rich culture. It's such an unique book, stroking every colour and not wasting any opportunity. Even Queen Victoria makes an appearance. Highly recommend.

I enjoy reading historical fiction and I enjoyed this book too, but I did find it a bit hard going. I couldn’t really get in to it. I enjoyed the historical fact about the building of the aqueducts to supply Glasgow with fresh water, to try and stop disease in Glasgow especially in the slums as cholera was rife. However I didn’t like the parts about the faeries as it just didn’t seem to fit in to the story for me.

Isabel Aird is a doctor’s wife based in Glasgow. Her husband feels that he wants to do more than just look after the over privileged in Glasgow. So he becomes the on site doctor looking after all construction workers in the Trossachs. This keeps him very busy, which leaves Isabel alone most of the time until she meets a wife of a construction worker. Who keeps her company and does some chores for her.

Isabel finds herself wandering the hills around Loch Katrine, where she finds herself still coming to terms with loosing 8 babies. On these walks she feels as though her lost children are with her as she wanders around.

Eventually Isabel finds herself pregnant again for the ninth time, but this doesn’t stop her from wandering all over the place. On one occasion she meet a strange man who she strikes up a conversation with. People warn her to stay away from him as they say there is something evil about him.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visit the site and Isabel insists that she is allowed to attend the party. Her husband doesn’t want her to go but he ends up taking her. After Queen Victoria and Prince Albert leave Isabel goes in to labour. She actually ends up using the room the was set up for Queen Victoria.

A few days after the baby is born the strange man that she came to know, turns up in her room and steals her baby. Everyone chases after him. Will Isabel find herself heart broken again with the loss of another child?

This was a dark and complicated tale which blends fertility, faeries, royalty, the beginnings of feminism and the installation of fresh water pipelines in Scotland to supply England. I liked it more than I expected to because it was filled with intriguing characters and cinematically depicts the hardship suffered by so many in this time.

A mix of historical novel and fiction of faeries, an unusual idea blending fact and myths. The change in viewpoint from one character to another was sometimes confusing took me a while to realise that the 'voice' had changed. Overall a great read that's refreshingly different.

Beautifully written and a lovely introduction to this author. I found the subject matter interesting, for example learning about the clean water project, however some of the subplots were a little over the top and detracted from the beauty of the main story lines. The book was overcomplicated and unfocused for my taste and I found it a bit of a chore to read. If it concentrated a little more on the main story that was coming through it would have been a 4 or even 5 star read from me.

As usual in my reviews I will not rehash the plot (there are plenty of other reviews like that around if that's what you are looking for).

Although I enjoyed this book on the whole (and in the end), I found it an effort to take in. For some reason (slightly disjointed?) I couldn't read it in one go (which is my usual method) and instead put it to one side whilst I read several other, shorter novels. I'm glad I persevered anyway.

"The Ninth Child" can be best summarised as an historical novel with added supernatural elements. Parts of the plot are based on real events (such as the construction of the Glasgow aqueduct system) and some of the characters are real people, which adds an authentic flavour. I was interested to learn that the main "supernatural" character was based on the real Rev Robert Kirke - obviously with added imaginings by the author!

There are interesting insights into society at that time, and the role of women. I felt great sympathy for Isabel (the main character) and indeed for those who lived in that period of social pressure and poor public health.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC. All opinions my own.

The Ninth Child is set in Scotland in the 19th century and tells the story of the construction of the Loch Katrine Waterworks, an engineering scheme designed to provide clean water to the people of Glasgow. The story is told from the perspectives of several characters associated with the scheme, the main one being doctor’s wife Isabel Aird. Having suffered several miscarriages during her six years of marriage, Isabel is depressed and unhappy, a state of mind which is not improved when her husband, Alexander, informs her that they will be moving to the Trossachs where he will be involved in the building of the new waterworks.

As a doctor, Alexander believes that the recent outbreaks of cholera in Glasgow are caused by the contaminated water supply, so he is looking forward to doing something that can really make a difference to people’s lives. Isabel accompanies him, reluctantly at first, but as she settles into her new home she finds comfort in walking in the countryside by the loch, especially when she begins to believe she is receiving messages from her lost children. It is during one of these walks that she meets the Reverend Robert Kirke, a man said to have been taken by the fairies two hundred years earlier. Are the stories about Robert true – and if so, why has he returned to the land of the living and what is his interest in Isabel?

The novel is written from the perspectives of several different characters: Isabel herself; Robert Kirke; Kirsty, the wife of one of the men working at Loch Katrine; and, surprisingly, Prince Albert, who is staying at Balmoral with Queen Victoria and preparing to appear at the official opening of the new waterworks. Unfortunately, the transitions from one character’s narrative to another are not very smooth and sometimes I couldn’t immediately tell who was narrating (something which wasn’t helped by the poor formatting of the NetGalley copy I was reading and will presumably have been improved in the finished version). The Victoria and Albert storyline felt unnecessary and out of place to me, but the others all added something different and complemented each other well, with Robert and Kirsty’s stories steeped in Scottish folklore and “the hills and the hollows and the brown peat moors and the ancient mounds of the Sìthichean – that’s fairies to you.”

Robert Kirke was a real person – an Episcopalian minister who lived from 1644 to 1692 and was the author of The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies, which was later published by Sir Walter Scott. Legends arose after Kirke’s death saying that he had been spirited away to fairyland after revealing their secrets and this is the basis of the story Sally Magnusson creates for him in The Ninth Child. I loved this aspect of the novel, which reminded me in some ways of James Hogg’s Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, but I couldn’t help feeling that this magical, fantastical tale didn’t really belong in the same book as the much more realistic and factual story of the Loch Katrine Waterworks. Lots of fascinating ideas found their way into the pages of The Ninth Child, but in the end I felt that it didn’t quite work either as fantasy or historical fiction.

Spellbinding! All serious readers will know the feeling of a book that you can't get enough of, ripping through the pages, enjoying the journey through the narrative, during stops, the anticipation of returning to the adventure, but dreading arriving at the destination and descending back to terra firma. For me, the Ninth Child proved to be one such book.
To be fair Ms. Magnussen starts our journey slowly, but soon picks up the pace. She teases you by changing interlocutor, is seemed to me, mid sentence, skipping between the 3 main protagonists, each with a unique voice. What starts as one woman's tale of serial miscarriages, develops through the historical building of the fresh water supply to 1856 Glasgow into a story of personal fulfilment and emancipation, (before the word was commonly used in regards to women's place). The book is unsparingly littered with real historical characters, all of whom are integral to the development of the story and with the disgusting poverty of the period, be it rural or in the city.
Then as the cover notes, this is a dark fairy tale, we are told in the early Walter Scott, highland tradition.
No idea if this is true or not, but I don't care, These weren't dancing faeries of childhood, these were the macabre folklore of I will be pulling up Ms Magnussen's other works, I hope she keeps up the magic.

The Ninth Child is a mesmerising mix of reality and fairytale. Neither of them are the pretty version, either. The story itself is set in Glasgow and the Trossachs between 1856 and 1859, where Isabel Aird is the wife of a young doctor. She has miscarried all seven of the babies she has carried so far, and is struggling to find meaning in her life. Her husband is very protective of her, but she can’t seem to forgive him for his apparent ability to shake off the loss of their babies.

We also get little glimpses in to the private lives of Queen Victoria and Albert, and the reason for this becomes clear as the story progresses. The link between the two families seems to be a strange character called Robert Kirke. Strange things seem to have been happening since the digging and tunnelling began. Isabel meets this strange man not long after she moves near to the site of the Loch Katrine Waterworks. This is no place for a lady brought up in all the comforts of a well-to-do Glaswegian home. But Isabel finds solace in the wildness, and the descriptions of the lochs and landscapes makes it easy to understand why.

This was such a surprising book, it wasn’t at all what I was expecting. I WAS expecting a good story - I loved The Sealwoman’s Gift. The mix of real, hard life and the fairy elements were really well done, and I loved that these weren’t the pretty, twee, friendly fairies that we seem to hear of so much of these days. I like my fairies to be tricksters, untrustworthy, always looking for an angle that they can work, a little grotesque.

I really enjoyed this book, and seemed to read it far too quickly. I’m a lover of history, myths and the unexplained, and this certainly delivered in these areas. The writing is gorgeous - the descriptions are such that you feel you’re there. We were supposed to be going on holiday this year to the Highlands, and this has made me hope even more that we’ll still be able to go. It’s one thing reading a description, it’s quite another to be there, experiencing the landscape for yourself.

This is a wonderful book, and one to tell my friends about!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Two Roads for my copy of this book to read and review.

I enjoyed this book and it was well written. Some of the novel I found a little slow going but that does not take away from the book being a really good read, I would recommend to anyone who wants something a little different.

I found this a really sad but captivating book. I often holiday in Scotland, so the atmosphere of the lochs and landscape descriptions resonated with me, and I felt like I was there.

It’s such a sad story, Isabel Aird, deprived of so many children, until the ninth, then the haunted Robert Kirke, only wanting to be released from Faery and reunited with his wife.

I liked this book, but it’s left me feeling quite sad!

This was a great read, which although may need some perseverance at the beginning as it does kind of flip around a bit but it is worth sticking to. It entwines real life events in the 1850’s set in Scotland with some elements of magical realism too. The detail was fantastic and it shows the author did a lot of research about the aqueduct being built, why it was being built and the scenery too.
I thought it was an enlightening book with all the details of the disease, medicine and the building of the aqueduct as well as heart wrenching, losing one baby is hard but eight must be so destroying.

With the publication of her second novel, The Ninth Child, Sally Magnusson shows once again her skill at crafting thought-provoking fiction based loosely around fascinating yet little-known historical facts. Her debut novel, The Sealwoman’s Gift, shone a light on an episode of Icelandic history when in 1627 pirates raided the coastline and abducted 400 individuals, forcing them into slavery in Algiers. Her latest book, The Ninth Child, is set much closer to home. Opening in Glasgow in 1856, when the city lived in fear of another devastating cholera outbreak, the reader is introduced to the main protagonist, Isabel Aird, a doctor’s wife who has suffered multiple miscarriages and is struggling to find her place within genteel society. When her husband offers his services in support of an ambitious new engineering project to build a series of tunnels and aqueducts from Loch Katrine in the Trossachs to supply the city with fresh water, Isabel sees a move to the mountains as an opportunity for adventure.

Location plays a key part in The Ninth Child, particularly the superstition and myths surrounding Doon Hill and Loch Chon. It is there Isabel meets the enigmatic Rev Robert Kirke and the novel veers from the historical into magical realism. Based on a real life minister and folklorist (Robert Kirk) enchanted by the ‘faerie’ underworld, Kirke befriends Isabel, although all is not as it seems. Both have suffered loss and turn to local folklore to supply answers seeking peace, as superstition swirls that faerie forces are being unleashed as the mountainside is blasted apart.

Magnusson cleverly juxtaposes Isabel’s new life in the mountains with its sunshine and shadows where anything seems possible, with the harsh reality of the dirt, sweat and danger of Victorian industry booming around her.

A further strength of Magnusson’s writing is the use of three very distinct voices - that of Isabel, Kirke and Isabel’s pragmatic maid, Kirsty. Her facts are well researched and deftly woven; the readers interest in the life of the real Rev Robert Kirke is peeked and perhaps a little more space about his intriguing life would have provided a greater understanding of such a unique individual.

The Ninth Child is a highly original exploration of fact meeting folklore, sweeping readers to a time when the possibility of meeting ‘faerie’ folk was real. It is magical realism blended beautifully with historical fact.

A mix of historical and fictitious events attached to a project to bring water from Loch Katrine to Glassgow to stop the Cholera out break. Interesting story.

It's the middle of the nineteenth century. Glasgow Corporation has arranged for the provision of clean water to the city which in places is as squalid as anything you might think of. This means building a tunnel in part of the Trossachs, Loch Katrine. Isabel Aird goes there with her husband, a doctor and there meets the mysterious Robert Kirke. She is a vulnerable woman, having suffered many miscarriages in her attempt to have a child and she finds herself drawn to Kirke to the horror of Kirstie, a woman from the Highlands, whom she befriends.

I found this novel very difficult to get into to begin with. The pace at the start is quite slow and I wasn't helped by the layout of this proof copy which did not distinguish between the different voices. However as it went on I found myself gripped by this exceptionally well researched novel. The story of how Glasgow got clean water doesn't seem immediately gripping but it is surprisingly interesting. There is a magical realist element to the story with the introduction of the faeries, something which would have me running for the hills normally but again I found that I was won over by this. But the best thing of all is the character of Kirstie whose wry commentary on the privileged Isabel's life is spot on. She is a great character. Overall this book is a very good read. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Full of atmosphere, intrigue and foreboding The Ninth Child finds Isabel Aird accompanying her husband, Dr Aird, to the Highlands and the construction of the Glasgow waterworks; a revolutionary engineering project cutting right through local fae lands.
There she encounters the enigmatic Robert Kirke who has much more sinister intentions than she could comprehend.
Any time I wasn't reading this book I was thinking about it. It has a way of getting under your skin, like a good Highland drizzle, and finds an unsettling middle ground between the old fairytales and the new industrial revolution. Something which is reflected in the character's struggles with their conflicting voices, desires and motivations. Really excellent.