The plot of Rebecca Stott’s DARK EARTH twines slowly throughout much of its 336 pages, moving in big, gentle sweeps rather than short, sharp twists and turns.

This meandering pace is mirrored by the quiet tedium of the setting: a nearly abandoned island surrounded by mud flats, not far from the now-abandoned city of Londinium, in post-Roman Britain. The story gains momentum as the urgency of the protagonists’ journey comes to a head, peaking just before the book ends in an ultimately satisfying conclusion.

"The story gains momentum as the urgency of the protagonists’ journey comes to a head, peaking just before the book ends in an ultimately satisfying conclusion."

Two sisters, Isla and Blue, teeter on the edge of adulthood as their safe existence hangs by a thread. Their father, a blacksmith banished from a fledgling settlement of invading Saxons, holds court on a remote islet in the middle of the muddy Thames River. The girls must effectively fend for themselves while their father busies himself forging swords. But when the outside world threatens their little oasis of isolation, Isla, the level-headed eldest sister filled with worry for her younger sibling, and Blue, forever with her head in the clouds, must forge their own paths.

A good chunk of the story takes place while they are still on the island, and the action doesn’t really begin until they depart. The first portion of the novel tends to drag on, and includes too many descriptions of the river and Blue’s flights of fancy and not enough propelling of their maturation.

Both young women undergo relatable and engaging transformations as they flee their home, seeking solace first with their own people, then with strangers and unknown individuals. Isla’s desperation for safety for her and Blue contrasts starkly with the latter’s naivete, which begins to grate on the reader.

It’s not until the girls take up with a settlement of women in the shadows of Londinium that they really begin to take shape as women rather than children.