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I hope you enjoy today’s free post, which is a book recommendation, something I’m planning to do more often. If you’re a free subscriber, then welcome. If you pay, then thank you. Your subscription allows me to continue my work. If you’d like to upgrade your subscription then please consider doing so now. I’m currently offering a flash sale, which means the cost is reduced to just 75p per week (around US$1) and for which you will get exclusive essays, opinions, fiction and help and advice on being your best creative self. .
I was asked by The Observer if there were any books I’d like to review. I chose Jodie Matthew’s brilliant debut, Meet Me at the Surface.
From the back cover:
Merryn grew up on the wilds of Bodmin Moor, raised by her mother and her aunt in an old farmhouse.
Here, the locals never leave the village, they fear for the future of their farms and cling desperately to the folkloric tales woven into their history.
Returning home for the memorial service of her ex-girlfriend Claud, Merryn finds her childhood home stranger and more secretive than ever. She's sure that her mother is hiding something. The villagers are hunting on the moors at night, but for what? And then there's a notebook, found in an old chest of drawers, full of long-forgotten folklore that seems to be linked somehow to Claud...
And from my review:
Nothing is as it seems in Meet Me at the Surface, which is reminiscent of Evie Wyld’s All the Birds, Singing, but with a flair that is unusual in a first book. It’s a tale of bargains made and debts recalled, the supernatural hovering above the narrative like a ghostly marsh light, drawing us further and further in. Transported to an eerie, unearthly realm that feels both modern and out of time, we find ourselves almost as ill at ease as Merryn herself.
Tomorrow we’ll hear from Jodie herself, who’s written a short piece about the book for Compendia.
In the meantime, you can buy the book here.
Happy reading!