When dollmaker Andrew Garvie falls in love with his pen-pal Bramber Winter, he sets out on a cross-country journey to rescue her from the remote asylum in which she dwindles. On the way he reads five dark fairy tales by Polish dollmaker Ewa Chaplin - stories which not only unsettle Andrew, but begin to exert their own influence on his actions.

Nina Allan’s The Dollmaker has elements of folklore, fantasy, and metafiction - and some rather startling illustrations of eyes which make it feel as if the book is watching you. Essentially, it is a novel about the influence objects and people have on us.

Andrew’s train journey is the framing narrative in which nestle Bramber’s letters to Andrew describing life at the institution, and the short stories Andrew reads en route. In the second half of the book, these three narratives echo and distort each other well, but I found there was so much chopping and changing in the first half that the book’s essential rhythm was late established. For me the character of Andrew came to life in the Clark Cannings scenes at the midpoint, and the reading experience improved from there.

Metafiction always perks me up and I enjoyed Andrew’s moments of partial self-awareness: “I felt ripe with coincidence, shaky with it, as if I were being manipulated somehow without my knowledge. As if - and I know how this sounds - I were myself a character in one of Chaplin’s stories.” (Loc 3158)

Many thanks to riverrun, Quercus, and NetGalley for this advanced reading copy.