BOOK: The Bride's Farewell - Meg Rosoff

Title: The Bride's Farewell
Author: Meg Rosoff
Genre: Teens
Publisher: Penguin, 2009
Pages: Paperback, 186
Language: English
Rating: 7/10
Summary: Pell Ridley sneaks out of the house on the evening before her wedding and takes off with her horse to live life on her own.

Spoilerfree Review
While browsing in a bookstore in London I discovered Rosoff had written a new book. Since I had devoured her previous work, I had to buy it. This is once again a completely different story and environment from her other books; this time it's about a young girl in fictitious middle ages.
Young Pell Ridley doesn't want to be confined by marriage, even if she would marry her best friend and longtime neighbour, so she leaves her family the night before her wedding. Unbeknown to her, her mute little brother Bean follows her. He refuses to go back home, so she drags him along on her journey. Pell wants to find a job, but that's not easy; her only talent is working with horses and that is considered a man's job. Plus no one is really eager to take responsibility for a single young woman and a silent (weird) child.
But eventually Pell meets a rough and mysterious stranger who is willing to give her a job...

I had to get used to the seemingly imaginary era the story was set in and the sometimes curious tone of the story; it's mostly told from Pell's point of view but takes unsettling sidesteps to events she knows nothing about. (Without the "meanwhile, on the other side of town" introduction, it takes you out of the mainstory nevertheless.)
I like that not everything is explained though and it is an interesting read. If Rosoff is aiming to write as many different books as possible, she certainly succeeded so far. I wonder what she comes up with next.