I know this story, but know not from where.

Where did I read this before? ( )

It's a hauntingly beautiful illustration and tale of revenge. ( )

It's a hauntingly beautiful illustration and tale of revenge. ( )

Written in 2010, initially as a spoken word piece to be performed in Sydney Opera House (with paintings and music in the background), this has been taken forward with original and additional paintings from Eddie Campbell. It's not quite "picture book" and not quite "graphic novel" but a mixture of several types of delivery. Some of the illustrations appear to have been originally rendered in oils (I could be wrong) as they seem to have a specific texture about them you can feel off the page....

Set on the Isle of Skye in Scotland a long time ago, a dwarf visits Calum MacInnes who knows the location of a cave far away in the mountains - a cave that contains gold to make a man rich for a lifetime. There is still some resentment about the English king, and a hope that the Scottish King would return and overthrow the foreigners......The Dwarf persuades the man to become a guide to said cave, which takes several days to reach there. Neither man trusts the other, and the fear of the cave makes for several attempts at double cross along the way. Ultimately we see why the dwarf wants to go to the cave, and that the previous visit by the guide has resulted in the curse coming true - after a fashion.

Neither men come out of the story a winner, and the women who are included dont fair very well either but this is not a fairytale happy ending kind of book. This is NOT suitable for young(er) children - there are some images and ideas that I wouldn't want them getting access to - give them "Wolves in the Walls" or "The day I swapped my dad for two goldfish" by the same author instead

This multimedia kindle edition was not great. The interface was clumsy, the audio player was overlaid on the text so you couldn't see all the text when the audio was playing, and it only plays on kindle hardware devices.

The story, however, was excellent, as were the illustrations. So my rating is for the story, not for the format. ( )