Review: Abductors by Bernadette Gaby Dyer

Comments on “Abductors” – a novel by Bernadette Gabay Dyer


As a teenager, I overindulged in folklore and never really made any kind of transition into the world of science fiction until I read Ms. Dyer’s “Abductors”. Not only could I revisit my past but I could now appreciate better where my contemporaries are coming from – welcome to the 21st century!

In reading Ms. Dyer’s novel, I appreciated her light touch and soft narrator’s voice that, while very much there, stays in the background and pulls the reader into the story. I enjoyed the lyrical quality of the description with the repetition of sounds at the beginning of the novel and as time passed, my critical mind was lulled to sleep and I was drawn in, oblivious of time. In fact, once on this voyage of discovery and reminiscence which brought me back to my earlier years as it did Graeme, I could only put the book down when my eyelids would no longer stay open no matter how much I blinked.

I was also pleasantly surprised to find that Ms. Dyer has done something out of the ordinary with the structure of her novel. What I liked was the way there was a smaller story inside a larger one, with the story of Graeme’s mother climaxing and giving way to a much larger story. The feeling of sitting around a cosy campfire listening to a story about the supernatural becomes illusory itself, when suddenly a flood of light and a panorama of events opens up a whole new space and the story continues on waves of suspense to a satisfying end.

This was an entertaining and informative novel that can be enjoyed by teens and adults alike – and anyone who has a taste for good literature.

Brenda MacDonald,
ESL Teacher