True love and dark shadows in the South Pacific
By Bronwyn Wylie-Gibb | Posted: Thursday Aug 06, 2026
Skylark by Ruthie Morgan (Lucky Arbuckle, 2014) and Borrowed Wings by Ruthie Morgan (Lucky Arbuckle, 2016)
These two books are really good reads, clever, funny and occasionally sad, with believable characters and thought-provoking and surprising plots. The setting is mostly the fictional South Pacific island of St Cloud, a beautiful place inhabited by an interesting cast of locals and ex-pats, experiencing all the pros and cons of island life.
Skylark is a well-written, imaginative love story about young Billie who runs away with artist Evan Skylark, to the South Pacific island of St Cloud. Their relationship is obsessive, intense and electrifying. Billie is devoted to Evan, warmed by his absorption in her and somewhat beguiled by a hinted at thread of darkness underlying his brilliant art and fascinating personality. He’s the dark handsome stranger with hidden depths and hurts that can be cured by true love, think Mr Rochester, Mr Darcy – Billie’s well read, she’s primed for her role.
An unexpected pregnancy and sudden motherhood change some things for Billie. Evan’s darkness is no longer a just-glimpsed thread, and love, no matter how true, may not be enough to rescue him or save herself from being overwhelmed. Skylark is a romance, with the lightness and joy that implies but it is also a skilful and realistic exploration of the thrills of creativity, the dangers of obsession and living with, or alongside, disturbed and damaged thinking. As Evan and Billie start to spiral, Morgan carefully builds the tension – the denouement is exciting and troubling, both distressing and a relief.
Morgan published Skylark herself and it picked up some impressive accolades: It was shortlisted for the UK Impress Prize 2015 and was a finalist in the Readers Favourite International Book Awards 2015 – Women’s Fiction category. It was a recipient of the B.R.A.G. Morgan Medallion 2015 (US. Book Readers Appreciation Group) and winner of the Drunken Druid Book of the Year 2014 – an Irish award for independent authors and small press publisher’s books, honouring excellence in literary fiction.
Skylark was a satisfying read in 2014 so I was very pleased when I heard that Morgan was returning to her characters and St Cloud in her next novel. Borrowed Wings picks up Billie’s story soon after the events of Skylark, as she is negotiating her new normal. Motherhood, grief and the place of Evan in their lives are absorbing her while the inhabitants of St Cloud are dealing with their own trials and joys. In particular, Jack, Billie and Evan’s neighbour, is wrestling with shadows from his past, and nascent hopes for the future. Once again Morgan has created a satisfyingly complete world with realistic characters whose ideas and actions ring true. There is ‘simple’ romance but also complexity and subtlety in these insightful novels, the writing is assured, plain but very evocative.
Ruthie Morgan is the pen name of the late Dunedin-based writer Donna Rutherford, a Scottish ex-pat who moved to the South Pacific. She published Moireach under her own name in 2018. This beautifully illustrated story of a young girl with Asperger Syndrome who is dealing with the death of her mother through her belief in Celtic folklore and fantasy won the Irish Imbas Short Story Award 2017.
Skylark was published in 2014 and Borrowed Wings in 2016, both by Morgan’s own imprint, Lucky Arbuckle. In August 2026 both books are available from Amazon as paperbacks and on Kindle.
Find these three books and over 3000 others in the Dunedin City of Literature Collection at Dunedin Public Libraries.
Bronwyn Wylie-Gibb worked in independent bookshops in Aotearoa and the UK for over 34 years, as a bookseller and book buyer. She lives and reads in Dunedin.
