Our May book of the month

I didn’t want it to end’ – Maggie O’Farrell’Utterly exquisite’ – Imogen Hermes GowarIt is 1938 and for Manod, a young woman living on a remote island off the coast of Wales, the world looks ready to end just as she is trying to imagine a future for herself. The ominous appearance of a beached whale on the island’s shore, and rumours of submarines circling beneath the waves, have villagers steeling themselves for what_Ts to come. Empty houses remind them of the men taken by the Great War, and of the difficulty of building a life in the island’s harsh, salt-stung landscape. When two anthropologists from the mainland arrive, Manod sees in them a rare moment of opportunity to leave the island and discover the life she has been searching for. But, as she guides them across the island_Ts cliffs, she becomes entangled in their relationship, and her imagined future begins to seem desperately out of reach. Elizabeth O_TConnor_Ts beautiful, devastating debut Whale Fall tells a story of longing and betrayal set against the backdrop of a world on the edge of great tumult.

Binding: Hardback