A Year of Marvelous Ways

Sarah Winman’s 2015 novel, A Year of Marvelous Ways, is a work of literary fiction that blends historical realism with elements of magical realism. The narrative alternates between two main characters: Marvelous Ways, an elderly woman living a secluded life in a Cornish tidal creek, and Francis Drake, a young WWII veteran adrift in postwar London. Haunted by his past, Drake makes a chaotic journey to Cornwall, where he collapses and is found by Marvelous, who has been waiting for a fated arrival foretold in a dream. As she nurses him back to health in her remote boathouse, their intertwined stories of loss, love, and survival become the catalyst for a deep healing process for them both.

An acclaimed British author, Sarah Winman is known for her tender, atmospheric fiction, including the international bestseller When God Was a Rabbit, the Costa-shortlisted Tin Man, and the award-winning Still Life. A Year of Marvelous Ways explores several of her characteristic themes. The narrative champions Healing Through Storytelling, as both Marvelous and Drake find solace and understanding by sharing their painful histories. Winman also offers a moving examination of The Lingering Trauma of War, portraying how the psychological wounds of combat leave veterans alienated from a world at peace. Finally, the story celebrates Nature as a Restorative Force, with the Cornish landscape and the tidal creek serving as a sacred space for spiritual cleansing and renewal.

This guide refers to the 2015 Tinder Press edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide feature depictions of death, death by suicide, suicidal ideation, rape, sexual violence, mental illness, substance use, graphic violence, and cursing.

Language Note: The source material uses the outdated and offensive terminology “gyspy” to describe Roma or traveling people, which this guide reproduces only in quotations.

Plot Summary

In 1947 Cornwall, 89-year-old Marvelous Ways lives a solitary life in a caravan parked in a tidal creek. She spends her days waiting, guided by a dream that tells her something is coming. She reminisces about the nearby derelict hamlet of St. Ophere, its former inhabitants, and the tragic history of the Rundle family. A new dream instructs her to open the boathouse, a place she has kept locked for 25 years, imprisoning the memories of her great love, Paper Jack. After resisting, she cleans and prepares the small dwelling, sensing it is for the person she awaits. Her premonition is clarified by another dream showing two images: a young man looking at a bleak horizon and a linnet flying over the River Thames.

In London, Francis Drake, a young, disillusioned WWII veteran, returns from France carrying a letter he promised a dying soldier, Dougie Arnold, he would deliver to his father in Cornwall. Drake spends a night in his old neighborhood, haunted by memories of his mother and his first love, his cousin Missy Hall. At Paddington station, he is shocked to see Missy and follows her to Spitalfields. They reconnect, and she reveals she now works as a life model. They spend a night together, but it is shadowed by their pasts and traumas, including Missy’s survival of the Café de Paris bombing and her shame over past sexual encounters. The next day, on the banks of the Thames, Drake’s desperate declaration of love makes Missy feel trapped. She initiates a game of hide-and-seek, asking him to sing an old hymn while she hides. While his back is turned, she walks into the river and disappears.

Devastated, drunk, and guilt-ridden, Drake flees to Cornwall. He gets off the train a stop early, wanders into the woods, and collapses, intending to die. Marvelous, who has been waiting, finds him there. She carries him to the boathouse, bathes his sickness away in the cold creek, and nurses him back to health. Over several weeks, as Drake’s body heals, Marvelous shares her own life story. She tells him of her mother, a “mermaid” from South Carolina whom her father, William Ways, brought to Cornwall; of her mother’s tragic death shortly after her birth; and of her own upbringing as a gifted healer and midwife. Her stories and gentle care create a sanctuary for Drake, though he remains tormented by Missy’s death and a deep, unspoken trauma from the war.

Finally ready to fulfill his promise, Drake travels to Truro to deliver the letter to Dr. Arnold. The doctor reveals that he knew Marvelous 25 years earlier. As a young doctor, he treated her for what he diagnosed as deep “melancholia” following the death of her lover. Dr. Arnold then takes Drake to a local museum and shows him a portrait titled Lady of the Sea, depicting a beautiful woman of color. He explains that William Ways fell in love with the painting’s subject and bought her freedom from enslavement in America before returning with her to Cornwall. Drake realizes the painting is of Marvelous’s mother. 

Back in the creek, a young woman named Peace Rundle, the last baby Marvelous ever delivered, arrives to reopen the St. Ophere bakehouse, bringing new life to the hamlet. When Peace was a baby, her brother Simeon returned from the First World War and died by suicide in St. Ophere. Perceiving Simeon as a coward, the other villagers ostracized the Rundles and omitted Simeon’s name from the war memorial, prompting the family to leave the hamlet. Peace’s attraction to Drake intensifies when he adds Simeon’s name to the war memorial in blue boat paint. However, she realizes that Drake is still preoccupied by a past love.

Meanwhile, Marvelous starts experiencing Drake’s nightmares. Drake finally confesses the source of his deepest shame: His failure to stop his comrades from raping a French woman during the war. Marvelous leads him to the river, where he washes himself in a symbolic act of absolution. 

Peace’s bakehouse thrives and love blossoms between her and a local fisherman, Ned Blaney. As spring turns to summer, Marvelous tells Drake and Peace the full story of her three loves, culminating with her great love, Jack Francis. She explains that her second lover was Jimmy Francis, but she realized that his brother, Jack, was her true love as soon as they met. The couple planned to leave for Australia together, but when Jimmy died in a mine collapse, Jack felt their love was cursed. He went away for 20 years and eventually returned as “Paper Jack,” with his health destroyed. Marvelous and Jack shared one final, beautiful year together before he died. 

Drake receives a postcard from Missy in Australia, claiming that she saw the Thames’s legendary mermaid when she walked into the river. The revelation that Missy is still alive disorients Drake, forcing him to reassess his guilt and leading to a period of severe depression. After finding Drake in crisis, Ned Blaney takes him out on his fishing boat, and Drake finally feels a sense of peace knowing Missy survived. 

Drake finds the key to Marvelous’s long-locked Book of Truths. The book is empty, except for a hidden photograph of Jack Francis. The man in the picture is identical to the collage of an imaginary father Drake created as a child from his own mother’s descriptions. In that moment, he understands that Jack Francis was his father, and Marvelous was the great love his father had to leave behind.

With her story told and her purpose fulfilled, Marvelous’s long life draws to a close. On her final evening, she leads Drake across his newly built bridge to the church island and shows him a gravestone carved with the name JACK FRANCIS. Having revealed the story that has bound them together across time, she walks into the river and disappears, rejoining her family in the water.