So many thanks to Simon of Eye and Lightning Books for sending me a copy of this fantastic read back in November. Developed from her prize-winning short story, this is the author’s first novel and one that I really couldn’t put down. Read on for my review.
SYNOPSIS
Rachel, a trainee vicar struggling to bond with her flock in the coastal town of Holthorpe, learns the terrifying power of the North Sea when her six-year-old daughter goes missing on the beach.
Meanwhile Mary, a defiant and distrustful loner, is fighting her own battle against nature as the crumbling Norfolk shoreline brings her clifftop home ever closer to destruction.
Both scarred by life, the two women are drawn into an unlikely friendship, but Mary’s misfit son Adam is nursing a secret. For Rachel, it will subject her battered faith to its greatest test: will she be strong enough to forgive?
In her taut, lyrical debut novel, Hilary Taylor weaves the bleak power of the East Anglian winter into a searingly honest psychological drama, as gripping as any thriller.
MY THOUGHTS
I like to support local authors when I can and read fiction set in East Anglia, so I was delighted when a copy of this landed on my door mat. Not just because of these reasons, but also because it sounded like a really interesting read!
The book opens on a cold and blustery Friday afternoon with our main character Rachel attending a PCC meeting at her church on the Norfolk coast. A trainee vicar, the author does a wonderful job at explaining how Rachel decided on this path and her constant doubts in her own ability. It describes Rachel as a very normal woman, wife and mother but one who is also training to become a priest, and I loved how this was merged at the start of the book in amongst her everyday life.
We then meet Mary and her son Adam who’s garden backs right onto the cliffs edge and is in ever present danger of being stripped away in the next storm. I loved their chapters, not just because they are great characters, but also the wonderfully evocative descriptions of the area and setting as they both spend a great deal of time outside. The author does a marvellous job at portraying the atmosphere and power of living by the North Sea. The coastal erosion and the setting of the whole novel is wonderfully effective and the author uses it throughout to great effect.
With the main characters introduced the book moves on to the disappearance of Rachel’s young daughter whilst on the beach one day. I won’t go into details of this as it would ruin the book for those who haven’t yet read it but I found it an immensely powerful and emotional read, with raw emotions from a family dealing with such an experience but also woven through the story a tremendously dramatic drama, as the story moves forward and we learn of what happen on that fateful day.
I found this book a powerful and unputdownable read, for a debut novel I was blown away. I felt connected to the characters right from the start and the book has the most wonderful atmosphere. I would highly recommend this to anyone and suggest you check it out immediately.
Babbage and Sweetcorn 