Frustrating. Overly verbose. Beautiful. It doesn't really start until 100 or so pages in, and then it had me. Adams goes into so much detail about ceramics and pottery that I found myself glazing over whenever he'd start to describe anything that wasn't directly related to the main characters. The relationship between Alan and Kathe was beautifully done and for me the suspense was in her and her implied secret. At the end I was left wondering if what I read into it all was correct. There are things I will always remember about this story. Unfortunately frustration is one of them.good gothic. Skip the first 100 pages: He's kind of an uptight guy who inherits his family's ceramic antiques business. Then Kathe comes along and he comes alive. ( )

"Only your image trembles in my heart".

Richard Adams-Girl in a swing

I love that quote. This book has become a part of my heart. Oh my. I can confidently say once read, this is a book one will never forget reading.

I do not want to say to much. I do not think one should know to much when going in. This is a compelling and utterly bewitching book.

Richard Adams, who also wrote "Watership Down" created a masterpiece with "The Girl in a swing".

Alan is a shy awkward young man. He has a passion for Ceramics. He also has some Psychic ability. Alan has never been in love.

Alan is a character whom the reader will instantly love. He could be your best friend, so down to earth and free of pretense he is. And even though he has never loved deeply, he is in his own way happy.

Then he meets Cathe. Cathe is as different from Alan as one can possibly be. She is beautiful, mysterious and the personification of just about everything Alan has ever wanted. He falls hard and he falls deep.

He cannot believe she may feel the same way about him. He quickly asks her to marry him and when she says yes, Alan feels complete.

It would not be in the reader's interest to know anymore going in. This is NOT a love story in the conventional sense. If I had to categorize it, I would call it a Gothic Mystery that also contains many Super Natural elements, a character study and yes, somewhat of a love story.

Suffice to say, this book touched me deeply and and quickly landed on my favorites list. Actually I read it long ago, before Goodreads even existed. What a book! This is one I have reread many a time.

The writing here is incredible. The book is ethereal and shrouded in mystery while the prose beguiles the reader. I had never read anything remotely like it the first time I read this. I still haven't.

The whole book is unforgettable. It is told in a way that is utterly enthralling and before I say anymore more and spoil my own review I just have to ask the reader to give this one a chance. ( )

What an utter load of drek. The ominous foreboding at the begining lead only to a bizarre ending with way too much hinted at in strangely overblown language but nothing even remotely revealed. I read this for bookclub so I'll be curious to hear other's impressions but I just found it irritating.

By the title you’d think this was written recently what with Girl this and the Girl that in just about every book title these days. Nope, it came out in 1980 and is one of those books that makes you wonder if you missed something along the way. So much is left up to the reader to decipher and interpret that I actually questioned my reading comprehension at the end. Never fear, it’s deliberate. Nothing is said plainly, plenty is hinted at. Obliquely. And before you decide that it’s authorial laziness I’m here to disagree. I’ve read Watership Down a couple of times and judging by that more famous work I know that Adams can convey nebulous ideas and render unusual scenes in great detail.

That said it’s an interesting book and in many ways very English. The landscape and towns, the habits and tea, the attitudes and obsession with the forbidden. It’s very, very sensual. I’d even go so far as to say erotic in spots. The way the women tut-tut over sex on the beach makes me stand up for Kathe in a way I didn’t through most of the story. If those women only knew the desire and fulfillment that she knew, but they couldn’t. Couldn’t even approach it on their most hedonistic day.

Any reader worth her salt will be suspicious of Kathe immediately. She inserts herself into Alan’s life swiftly and surely. He’s so damn helpless that it’s no wonder (can’t cook, can’t type, can barely use a phone) and sex is such an unknown so when she introduces him to it, he falls into it headlong, losing himself, reason and caution. She brings evasion to an art form, dodging questions and changing the subject. But over time her actions and reactions speak of a past full of upheaval and death. She is fascinated by religion, afraid of children and the dark. She’s too much a product of wish-fulfillment to be believable; she’s a sex machine, has to be cared for and coddled thus making Adam feel more alpha-male, wants to learn at the feet of her man, etc. The capper for unbelievably is when Adams has her say to Alan “And then you came round the corner like a sort of human goat and just raped me - it was sheer heaven, even by our standards…”). Um, I don’t think that word means what you think it means.

It’s a very dream-like novel even with gaffes like that. A reader who needs concrete information and everything spelled out for them won’t like this. You have to have imagination and intuition. Alan himself is baffled much of the time so he’s no help, you’ll have to figure it out and go with your instinct. Some say there’s too much information about ceramics and porcelain, but I didn’t find it so. ( )

Not sure what to make of this story. The first part of the book is slow going and detail of ceramics was too esoteric. Once the main character, Alan Desland goes to Copenhagen on business, the pace picks up. Here he meets a mysterious young woman, Karen, with whom he becomes obsessed. In less than a week he's asked her to marry him, she's agreed, and everything is hunky dory- or so it seems on the surface. This is where the plot becomes far fetched - amid far too much feverish coupling it becomes apparent that all is not right with Karin. All slides down hill and the climax, when it comes, is wildly OTT. The reader is eventually let into the secret that Karin has been hiding all along and that leads to her downfall. Unfortunately it's very hard to believe that anyone would have done what she supposedly did to marry a very boring ceramics dealer from Newbury in Berkshire who she'd known for less than a week... I'm afraid the mix of Kali, ghosts, sex, ceramics and middle-class home shires in England did not make for a ripping yarn ( )