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Fling! is a delightful piece of magical realism that will be thoroughly enjoyed by
anyone who loves this often overlooked subgenre. The main characters are funny, quirky and
developed in an engaging way as the novel progresses. I was never bored at any moment while
reading this amazing piece by MacKenzie.
I obtained an ARC of this book trough the Member Giveaway at LibraryThing. I would like to
thank Lily Iona MacKenzie for providing the copy and for sharing this amusing magical realism story.
~ Clarissa at Goodreads.com
Fling!, Lily Iona MacKenzie’s debut novel, spans two continents, three generations of Heathers,
and multiple layers of reality. In 1906, Heather McGregor is born in the Isle of Skye—or is not born,
exactly, but dances off a painting and into a potato patch. Heather grows (more robust than the potatoes),
marries a MacDonald, and moves to Calgary. There she gives birth to another Heather, later known as
Bubbles, who in turn gives birth to her own Heather, known as Feather. But Heather Number One doesn’t
stick around “cold Protestant” Canada for long. She flees with an employer to a wild and mysterious life
in Mexico. Many years later, Bubbles, a sprightly ninety when the novel opens, decides she and Feather
must follow in Heather’s footsteps—not vanish into Mexico but simply retrieve Heather’s long lost ashes
and perhaps discover what tempted her mother to leave family behind forever. Of course, Feather and Bubbles
discover much more: sex, drugs, shamans, a very vital statue, and living, dancing long-dead relatives—including
Heather, still wild and spry and generous with motherly advice. With a light but practised hand, MacKenzie
weaves the rich traditions of Skye with the myths and magic of Mexico (and a rather modest portrayal of her
hometown Calgary) to explore motherhood, the ties that bind generations of women—and perhaps the secret to
happiness itself.
~ Understorey Magazine
This is a mother-daughter bonding story like no other. Ninety-year-old Bubbles is a risk taker
and sixty-year-old Feather feels more like her mother's caretaker than her daughter.
When Bubbles receives a letter from Mexico informing her that her mother's ashes, lost seventy
years before, had been found in a shoebox, she becomes a woman with a mission. She convinces
Feather to go with her on an overdue adventure.
Unlike most ninety-year-olds, Bubbles has a youthful, fun-loving spirit. Feather sees her mother
in a new light, and they come to understand each other as never before. The thread of their
often-strained mother-daughter relationship creates necessary tension. The pacing moves the
story along and keeps the pages turning. Both Bubbles and Feather believe that magic and reality
co-exist in Mexico. And, indeed, in Fling!, it does.
~ Ann McCauley on Story Circle Book Reviews
Love the book and the book cover
~ Joyce H. Hunt on Amazon
Fling! is a zany, zesty novel, with wonderful interplay between two different and
yet not so different people, mother and daughter in a relaxed but occasionally tension-filled
setting—magical Mexico. It's a book to savor, read slowly, occasionally laugh hard with,
and it ultimately allows a willing reader to reflect on the wondrous mythical experiences
we're most of us lucky enough to accumulate on this strange journey called living.
~ Manfred Wolf on Amazon
This was so much fun . . . I read it straight through & couldn't wait
to find out what would happen next! Loved the humor!
Very insightful about relationships between generations of women.
~ Amazon customer
I was sold before I even turned the first page. No more than twenty pages in, I struggled
to put it down, drawn in by the brief interlacing point of view chapters that leap
chronologically and geographically between Scotland, Canada, and Mexico. To say that I was
pleasantly surprised by Mackenzie’s charmingly offbeat novel would be an inexcusable
understatement. Captivated by the surreal plot, eccentric yet relatable characters, and
simple but vivid language, I quickly confirmed my suspicion that Fling! was about far than
just a fling (which, in the age of Tinder, has taken on something of an unsavory connotation).
With all the lighthearted fun of a fling, this novel also explores the importance of
restoring fractured familial relationships, coming to terms with mortality and transience,
and maintaining a certain joie de vivre no matter what your age or circumstances.
The only lingering critique I have of Fling! is perhaps its title and the transience it so
strongly implies. While the novel is full of rollicking flings and short bursts of mini-climaxes,
the healing effects of Bubbles’ and Feather’s experiences are clearly long-lasting. Indeed, the
novel seems to resolve (or come close to resolving) some of the most age-old tensions between
eternity and transience, life and death. While the experience of reading Fling! for the first
time was a fleeting one (as all our experiences are), its lessons and magic have stayed with me
and will continue to do so as with all of our more meaningful flings.
~ Karen Lively at The California Journal of Women Writers
WOMEN'S FICTION/MAGICAL REALISM: Fling! starts at the turn of the twentieth-century
Scotland with Bubbles' birth. It then immediately jumps to Canada, then moves rapidly to
Mexico. Bubbles is a lively character with her own personal mythology. Her grandfather told
anyone who would listen that she danced off a painting. Her daughter, Feather, came the
old-fashioned way, which could be the reason there is a chasm between them. The middle-aged
Feather constantly feels upstaged by her mother. Now, fate arrives enclosed in a letter
informing Bubbles that her long-dead mother’s ashes are in Mexico City. The trip could be
the yarn that finally knits the two of them together, or it could serve as a wedge driving
the two of them farther apart.
Ms. Mackenzie does a wonderful creating the irrepressible Bubbles! The ninety-year-old matriarch
not only says what she thinks, but also acts on it, whether it is eating with gusto, dancing, or
seducing men young enough to be her grandson! Her colorful remembrances and internal dialogues
should delight readers.
Feather, her daughter, is a harder character to embrace. She considers herself a self-styled
hippie, but often her behavior tends to be more rigid and conservative with her concerns about
money, her mother’s mental stability, and control. The author highlights the contrast between
who Feather thinks she is and who she really is.
The reader tags along as the duo make their way south enjoying the sun, liquid-eyed hunks, and
life. Fling! is a self-discovery road trip, and an enjoyable read reminding the reader
to chase rainbows while on the right side of the soil.
~ Morgan Stamm at InD'tale magazine
If you want to take a wild ride this fall, Fling! by Lily Iona MacKenzie is the way to go!
The chaos begins when Feather and her mother Bubbles decide to travel to Mexico together
to pick up her grandmother's ashes. As MacKenzie describes it, "traveling with her mum
would mean lots of detours and curvas peligrosas-dangerous curves. Feather's whole life
has been like that, one curve after another. "
Besides the Keystone Cops aspect of almost every scene, we find the added attractions of time
traveling and dead people coming back to life. MacKenzie uses the vehicle of raising Feather's
grandparents from the dead to relate events of the past that Feather never knew about.
In another passage MacKenzie describes a scene as "an episode of The Young and the Restless.
Murder and mayhem! Arsenic and old lace? She always suspected more skeletons were rattling
around in the family closet. This one's a doozy."
So if you're looking for one doozy after another, read this book. You won't be bored for a minute.
~ Madeline40 on Amazon.com
Fling! . . . what I can say about this book?? . . . .what
the heck did I just read??!! . . . and I don't mean
that in a bad way at all. First word that comes to mind "Quirky" . . . that's the word that I have
been using to describe this book to anyone who asks me what the book is about. Before I continue
let me first give a big thanks to the powers-that-be over at LibraryThing to whom I won this book
from and to the talented Lily Iona Mackenzie who wrote this "Quirky" book.
I think I am going to share this book with my own eccentric mother . . . only
because I know how to make sure I get my book back from the lady. But for everyone else in my life
my greed is too strong so I am going to recommend they go out and buy the book. It's worth it!!!
~ DalaiMommaReadingDrama at Goodreads.com
From the start, MacKenzie creates worlds within worlds as her characters float back and forth
in time, experiencing moments both lived and imagined. Filled with dreams, hopes, drama, the
mundane and the mystical, each character travels through space (geographically from Scotland
to Canada to Mexico) and time (past, present and future). In the same breath, then in skipped
breaths, MacKenzie flings us in and out of the overflowing lives of three generations of women.
After celebrating her 90th birthday, “Bubbles” is determined to collect her deceased mother’s
ashes in Mexico. She believes that having the ashes will allow her to feel closer to the mother
who had abandoned her. Determined to see if such a journey will allow her to release “the
memories buried under resentments she’s amassed over the years," Bubble’s daughter, Feather,
agrees to accompany her mother. Understanding now that “one person’s mess can be rooted in
another generation,” Feather begins the journey wanting to forgive her mother and to find
respect for all the women in her family who followed their dreams even as they left poverty
and children behind.
Weaving stories of love and lust between other tales of broken marriages, loneliness, and longings,
MacKenzie succeeds in filling our appetite for finding meaning and placing closure on the pains of
the past, while living uninhibited adventures in the present.
In the final act of Thornton Wilder’s “OUR TOWN,” when the dead who inhabit the town’s cemetery take
front and center stage, the main character, Emily, ultimately returns to the cemetery saying of the
living: “They don’t understand.” So, too, in Fling!, we find not only the ashes of a grandmother long
since dead, but a woman who magically comes to life. The fine line between memories, life, death,
and an eternal search for feeling connected to family, to what’s real, and to what’s larger than
life, is skillfully navigated by MacKenzie, who respects and helps us to understand each of her
quirky—sometimes introspective, sometimes wise—but always marvelously fascinating and
entertaining characters.
~ Linda Appleman Shapiro at Amazon.com
Summer may be over, but there’s still time for a fling, by which I mean the novel Fling! by
Lily Iona MacKenzie. It’s not too late for some good beach reading, and even if you won’t
have a chance to travel, this book will take you from Scotland to Canada to Mexico in the
company of a delightful trio of women—Feather, a middle-aged ex-hippie, her irrepressible
90-year-old mother, Bubbles, and her grandmother, Heather, long dead but magically alive
again in Mexico, along with her own parents, Annie and Malcolm.
Both Feather and Bubbles have long since changed their names from Heather, who came to Canada
with Bubbles to join her husband, then took off for Mexico with a lover. This desertion sets
a pattern: Bubbles will leave Feather as her mother left her, continuing a generational rift.
But then a letter arrives from the dead letter office in Mexico City, announcing that Heather’s
ashes must be picked up. Of course, Bubbles and Feather knew of Heather’s death from cancer in
her 50s, but the existence of her ashes is new information, and Bubbles insists they must go
to Mexico to retrieve her mother.
Thus begins the journey to end all journeys, filled with amazing adventures and hilarious
characters, as these two women from cold climates travel south to the land of sun, where the
dead come to life to settle past grievances. Both Feather and Bubbles come to understand
each other and the pattern of desertion that has affected their lives, and find love and
rejuvenation in Mexico. Maybe they’ll stay down there; maybe they’ll bring their new insights
back to the cold plains of Midwestern Canada. But whatever happens, they won’t be the same
women who set out to reclaim their mother’s—and grandmother’s—ashes.
~ Susan St. Aubin at Amazon.com
Fling takes the reader on a grand adventure starting in lovely Scotland, pushing us into a new
hoped for opportunity in Canada, and finally taking us on the trip of a lifetime in Mexico.
3 different places, with different attitudes that force mother and daughter to look within
themselves to adjust. The relationship between mother and daughter reminds me of a lot of
relationships, there is a delicate, definite, and deep love; however they are two different women
and do not see eye to eye. The way they relate to each other is absolutely hilarious and heartwarming.
Mom, Bubbles, is flighty, fantastical, and a bit irresponsible; which is a distinct contrast to
practical, employed, and responsible daughter Feather. At times while reading I forgot that we are
talking about a 60-year-old and a 90-year-old; however they learn through their travels to change a
lifetime of interactions with each other and learn to relate in a new healthier way.
If there is one criticism of this story, it would be regarding the flashbacks. While I normally
enjoy flashbacks, the jumps in the book gave me whiplash. I got an idea of where she wanted to go
in the story, but it often took me a page or two to really start following the storyline again.
This made it a more difficult read. Had she spent more than a chapter in each “time”, I feel that
it would have been easier to follow along with and would really have allowed me to go deeper and
really lose myself in this otherwise wonderful story!
Overall, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a more “realistic”
fantastical book with a lovely message.
~ Rebecca Fricke at Amazon.com
This is a very readable, very enjoyable novel about a mother and daughter's journey to
understand each other. The book spans a lot of geography and history, although the
history is alive at the time of the action. One of the delights of the book is the
vision of how our family history shapes who we are and the ways in which our struggles
are intertwined with those of our ancestors. In addition, the book links up the Isle of
Skye in Scotland in the early 1900s, with Calgary in Canada in the middle part of the 20th
century along with modern day Mexico. The archetypes common to all three cultures are well
observed. But first and foremost, this novel is very humorous, and a real page-turner.
Anybody with a hippie soul will enjoy the ways in which the two main characters get lost in
Mexico before finding themselves and each other.
~ Douglas G MacKenzie at Amazon.co.uk
Totally quirky journey to experiencing relatives, even after they have been dead for
generations, and coming to terms with life.
~ Meg Dendler at Goodreads.com
A cross between a Carlos Castaneda novel and 'The little old lady who broke all the rules'.
It takes a few chapters to get into the writing style but it's worth the effort. The
characters are well developed and the issues ring true. I think this would make a great
movie, the author describes scenes so vividly you feel like you can see things as they happen.
Some great humour and a different perspective on living life as a senior. Book received
free from Goodreads.
~ Margaret Mcnamee at Goodreads.com
I think most people will enjoy Fling! by Lily Iona Mackenzie because of the character
of Bubbles, a 90-year-old who refuses to act her age. Bubbles wants life in all its richness—sex,
food, travel. She is still hungry and doesn't see why she should consider her plate full.
The relationship between Bubbles and her hippie daughter Feather is also appealing. In many ways,
these women have a typical mom-daughter relationship, but their quirkiness is all their own.
When the two visit Mexico City to pick up the ashes of Bubbles' long-dead mother, the story gets
even zanier when Bubble's dead mom and grandparents all make real-life appearances. A fun summer read.
~ Carol Moreira at Amazon.com
I recently read a novel that completely pulled me into the universe—and what a universe
it is! Fling!, the new novel from writer and educator Lily Iona Mackenzie, is set in
many countries. It’s at once a glimpse into new, interesting characters—and new, interesting
worlds. It’s a saga that spans time, all at once. It’s color, and cold; light, and dark; memory,
and forgetfulness; mothers, daughters, granddaughters; culture, and chaos. I love it.
Let me tell you why: I felt completely involved in the characters, family, and storyline. I rooted
for some characters, felt puzzled at others, and felt champagne-like joy at the appearance of Annie
(whom I just love). Fling! also covers the trickiness of mother/daughter relationships, and
getting older. And, most importantly, Fling! offers the magic of possibility. That is pretty
heady writing (and reading), and is what makes MacKenzie’s book a treasure to delve into deeply—and
emerge happy, with a magical world in your memory. Highly recommended.
~ Jessica Voigts at Amazon.com
Starting in the Isle of Skye in Scotland, Lily Iona MacKenzie's Fling! takes the reader on
physical and metaphysical journeys through the Canadian prairies to San Francisco to several
locales in Mexico. As seen through the eyes of her main characters, sixty-year-old Feather and her
ninety-year-old mother, Bubbles, Fling! is a blend of Alice Munro-like plot twists and
Latin American magical realism. It's an unpredictable ride as the two main characters find their
way toward being more generous with each other and themselves.
~ Mike Shaler at Amazon.com
The intertwining of Canadian, Scottish and Mexican mythology and culture is remarkable and
illustrates our common humanity — It is uplifting — The portrait of "Mum" is loving,
honest and expresses the ambivalence in family relationships — A really full, red blooded
romp through North America !!
~ Barbara Campbell at Amazon.com
The relationship between mothers and daughters has always been a complicated one, ripe with
misunderstandings, love, betrayal, virtue, honesty and jealousy. In Fling!, we delve
into three generations of women, all looking for answers.
Bubbles receives a letter from Mexico saying they are holding her mother's ashes and please
come pick them up. She calls her daughter, Feather, and convinces her to go to Mexico. Feather,
not knowing how long her mother has left, agrees.
What started out as a favor to her mother turns Feather's world upside down. There's something
magical about Mexico (old Mexico, I mean) and all three generations of women discover the spirit
within.
A beautifully told story, we catch a glimpse behind the scenes through flashbacks. Normally,
flashbacks are a pet-peeve of mine but I wasn't bothered because I felt I was part of the story.
I was enthralled by the narration as I got deep into each of the characters. Art, myth and the
lure of Mexico blend perfectly in Fling!.
Favorite Character: Bubbles was my favorite character because she reminded me of my great-grandmother.
She's a free spirit and has lived three lifetimes in one. She may appear to be enigma to her daughter,
Feather, but to me, she is a woman after my own heart. Fun, feisty and flirty, Bubbles will steal your heart.
Favorite Quote: Like a snarl in Annie's knitting, she's waiting to be untangled and rewoven into the
fabric, freed from the negative family stuff but not separated from kin. ~Feather
My Rating: 4 stars
~ N.N. Light at Amazon.com
What a pleasure to recommend Lily Iona MacKezie's first novel! Fling! is a delightfully comic
romp, from Calgary, to Portree on the Isle of Skye, to Mexico City and beyond. And like all genuine
comedy it wears its seriousness lightly. Feather, a middle aging hippie from San Francisco, has
decided to accompany her mother, 90-year-old Bubbles from Calgary to Mexico City, where (Bubbles
thinks) her mother's ashes are waiting to be picked up. One of MacKenzie's gifts is her ability to
make what seems to be unbelievable fantasy completely believable—a ninety-year-old retrieving
HER mother's ashes? And that isn't the only family connection that gets magically resurrected in the
land where the dead are never dead.
Perhaps the most delightful single feature of Fling! is MacKenzie's quite astonishing gift for
making Bubbles' undying vitality—something close to an immortal zest for life—live on in
you after you finish the book. With her remarkable ear for the dips and turns and weavings of American
(and Canadian) colloquial speech, Lily Iona MacKenzie has written a book that heralds that start of a
brilliant career.
~ Anonymous at BarnesAndNoble.com
When I first read the description of Fling! by Lily Iona MacKenzie, I was eager to start reading.
I’m a sucker for complicated mother-daughter relationships and, at its heart, this is the story of
sixty-year-old Feather and her ninety-year-old mother, Bubbles. Struggling under the weight of past
disappointments and betrayals, their relationship is loving, but strained. When Bubbles pressures her
daughter into a quest to recover her mother’s missing ashes in Mexico City, the duo sets out on an
adventure that seems ill-fated. Then a few dead ancestors join the party, highlighting the rampant
misunderstandings, missed opportunities, lost loves, betrayals and petty jealousies of the past. In
this story, the sins of the parents continue to echo through the generations in fascinating patterns.
This book is a giddy, breathless, dizzy journey through space and time—pinballing from Isle of Skye
in Scotland in the early twentieth century, Canada in the 1950’s and Mexico in 1996. The point of view
bounces around quite a bit, and at times I was rather seasick from the view inside Bubbles’ head. That
said, Bubbles’ swings in thought, focus, mood and personality were authentic, reminding me of listening
to my own grandmother during the middle stages of dementia. It is obvious that the author is familiar
with the idiosyncrasies of a free-spirited woman entering her nineties; unwilling to go gently into
anyone’s version of “that dark night.”
This is a poetic, unconventional, farcical journey through the enigmatic terrain of family relationships,
shifting perceptions and lost loves.
~ Trisha Slay at TrishaSlay.com
Fling! takes the reader on a magical journey from Scotland to Canada to Mexico. One part fictional
memoir encompassing nearly a decade of living, one part portrait of a strained yet matured mother-daughter
relationship and one part fantasy, Fling! is anything but your mundane read!
With rich characters and vibrant settings, Fling! focuses on the lives of Feather and her mother, Bubbles
as they travel to Mexico to reclaim the ashes of Bubbles' long deceased mother. As the story progresses, we learn
of the trials and tribulations of Bubbles' last ninety years, how she once left her daughter, Feather, behind just
as Bubbles' own mother once left her and how these three generations of woman are actually all named Heather,
despite the nicknames they eventually chose to reflect their individual personalities.
Magical realism dominates much of the last third of the book. At times, it feels as if Feather and Bubbles have
followed "Alice" down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. Except, in this story, Wonderland is rural and impoverished
Mexico and it exists on a parallel plane where death is merely another state of living.
If you aren't able to take an adventurous vacation this year, Fling! is the next best alternative. You
won't soon forget Bubbles whose effervescent name matches her buoyant ability to never act nor succumb to her
advanced age.
~ Audry Fryer at AllThingsAudry.blogspot.com
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