I am in charge of the senior library and work with a group of Reading Ambassadors from 16-18 to ensure that our boarding school library is modernised and meets the need of both our senior students and staff. It has been great to have the chance to talk about these books with our seniors and discuss what they want and need on their shelves. I was drawn to his book because I thought it would be something different from the usual school library fare and draw the students in with a tempting storyline and lots to discuss.
This book was a really enjoyable read with strong characters and a real sense of time and place. I enjoyed the ways that it maintained a cracking pace that kept me turning its pages and ensured that I had much to discuss with them after finishing. It was not only a lively and enjoyable novel but had lots of contemporary themes for our book group to pick up and spend hours discussing too.
I think it's important to choose books that interest as well as challenge our students and I can see this book being very popular with students and staff alike; this will be an excellent purchase as it has everything that we look for in a great read - a tempting premise, fantastic characters and a plot that keeps you gripped until you close its final page.

I was really looking forward to this as my family is Cornish. However, I thought there was not enough of the setting, apart from the village it was set in. I also thought that the pacing was quite slow, but there was a lot of character development.

I felt a little bit disappointed by Wrecker. The premise and setting promised something a little more excited/thrilling/swashbuckling than it delivered. I quickly realised that the wrecking referred to had little to do with ships and the sea. Unfortunately I found the romance oddly passionless. And the religion just bogged the whole thing down and as a result I found it a little dull in places. The ending was a little weak for me and while Wrecker was a mildly entertaining way to pass a few hours, I'd be reluctant to recommend this one for purchase.

Shipwrecks are a part of life on the coast of Cornwall. In the remote village of Porthmorvoren, things are no different. Bounty and corpses wash up on the beaches regularly, and the locals take what they can. On one such day, Mary Blight helps herself to a fine pair of boots from the body of a dead noblewoman, not realising that she has set herself up as the prime suspect for biting off the woman’s earlobes to steal her earrings. As word spreads of the so-called ‘Porthmorvoren Cannibal’, Mary’s safety becomes less and less certain. The arrival of a handsome Methodist minister to the village only makes matters worse.

Wrecker is the perfect book for fans of Poldark. The story itself isn’t particularly exciting. It’s a detailed snapshot of a time in Mary’s life where some unfortunate things happen to her, but nothing overly dramatic. There is no big adventure, no gruesome murder to solve, no epic romance. Just some interesting stuff happening to a pretty unlucky woman.

The quality of the writing is what brings this story up. I didn’t like the characters very much – especially Mary – but I still found myself caring about her. To be honest, she deserved a lot of the bad things that happened to her, but I was rooting for her nonetheless. My main takeaway from this book was that I felt really, really sorry for Johnenry.

My favourite thing about Wrecker was that it is written using old Cornish dialect (which is much easier to understand if you have watched Poldark). The character voices were so realistic and so full of attitude that, even though I found the story a teeny bit boring, it was a pleasure to read.

This is a story about a remote, poverty stricken Cornish community in the 1800s, where superstitions and ghost stories are rife. Every now and then a ship wrecks in the dangerous waters of the cove and at these times the local folk rush out to claim the spoils of cargo, stripping ships to the bare bones and the dead of their possessions and even their clothing. Mary Blight is a spirited young women who raises a few eyebrows with her wild red hair and somewhat wanton ways. One day whilst down on the shore Mary spots a man tied to a barrel, floating out on the water. Without a second thought she rushes out into the swell and rescues the man from drowning. The saved man turns out to be a Minister who takes it upon himself to oversee the building of a chapel for the local people in an attempt to help them find God and do away with their superstitious, pagan beliefs. Even Mary tries to live a more pious life to gain the favour of the Minister, but her past sins threaten to come back and haunt her.

This is a very atmospheric story about a community doing what it has done for generations in order to survive. I found Mary to be a very likeable character, a tart with a heart if you like, despite her sometimes questionable deeds and decisions. The writing is lovely and descriptive, though the religious elements were a bit much for me at times. Generally this is a very engrossing and enjoyable read.

Wrecker is a fantastic, atmospheric and quite dark piece of historical fiction that I really enjoyed.

The author is very good at setting the scene and I really felt transported to the Cornwall of the past. Cornwall’s myths and legends as well as the local dialogue is cleverly interwoven into the story which further helped evoke 18th Century Cornwall for me. The author has clearly done his research and I found it fascinating to learn more about the history behind the book.

Wrecking was quite an emotional practice to read about, especially when the shipwreck caused death. The people who did it or who stole from the dead must have been desperate to do it as I don’t think it’s something I could have done. The descriptions of what Mary sees when she visits the ship wrecks makes for quite hard reading at times, especially when it involved children .I did find myself skipping the passages that described those scenes.

I wasn’t entirely sure if I liked the main character Mary. On one hand I liked her don’t care attitude towards a lot of things and felt sorry for her for having to visit the ship wrecks in order to provide for her family. However she comes across as quite bitter about her position in life and vain as she cares a lot about her looks which meant I wasn’t able to warm to her. I found myself thinking she’d be a lot happier if she just accepted her position and her looks as a lot of people seem to like her.

For a historical fiction novel this was surprisingly fast paced with lots of stuff happening that helped keep my interest. The story is quite unusual and I wanted to keep reading to learn more about the history of place and to find out how it would end. I’m always slightly dubious when a novel is described as being like Daphne Du Maurier as she’s one of my favourite authors, but I did feel that it was justified this time as the styles are similar.

Huge thanks to Joe Thomas from HQ stories for my copy of this book via Netgalley and for inviting me onto the blog tour.

The Cornish coast is one of my favourite haunts in the British Isles, with its rugged and beautiful coastline, spectacular scenery and remote villages, it is a fantastic setting for a book. Combine this with a dark and treacherous story and you've got me - hook, line and sinker!

The story is narrated by Mary Blight and tells the tale of wreckers, who would watch the bodies of drowned sailors wash up on their shoreline, and due to the extreme poverty they endured, would think nothing of taking the sailors boots or clothing. They also know that with shipwrecks come treasure - barrels of liquor, exotic fruits, and perhaps if they were really lucky, a jewel or two. After a severe storm, Mary rescues Methodist minister Gideon Stone from the sea, and in direct conflict with what the rest of the villagers would like to happen, she nurses him until he is back to full-health. It soon becomes apparent that Stone wants to bring an end to the pagan beliefs and customs that the villagers live by, and sets out to build a chapel on the hill. As Mary and Gideon are drawn together, things become increasingly difficult when people become jealous and begin to plot against her.

This is a thoroughly engaging read based on true events that used to take place centuries ago. There is certainly an air of authenticity to it and O'Reilly's writing is beautiful, it easily draws you in and has you invested in the characters and the outcome from very early on. There are many different layers to the tale and they all interact effortlessly creating one of the best reads of the year for me. If the overall premise interests you, then I urge you to give it a go! I cannot imagine anyone being disappointed by this book in any way. I also wanted to give a quick shout out to the cover art - it fits the story impeccably! Kudos to both the author and the illustrator.

Many thanks to HQ for an ARC. I was not required to post a review and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

I first came across stories of wreckers in one Enid Blyton’s Famous Five books when I was quite young. Five Go Down To The Sea was a book that had me reading saucer-eyed, late in to the night, as I heard the story of wicked people who used lights to lure boats onto the treacherous rocks of the Cornish coast so they could plunder the cargo of the sinking ship, careless of the lives of any passengers or crew on board. I was truly horrified that people could do something so evil, but fascinated at the same time and it must be true that childhood impressions stick because I have remained fascinated ever since.

Subsequently I discovered the books of Daphne du Maurier and, of course, Jamaica Inn deals with the same subject matter and has always been one of my favourites. So when I saw Wrecker on Netgalley, firstly its beautiful cover caught my eye but then, when I read the description, I knew I had to read it. However, I have ended up with mixed feelings about the book.

In some ways it did remind me of Jamaica Inn – the setting, the squalor of living conditions, the roughness of the people, plus they both have a mystery at the heart of them. However, there were a few ways in which Wrecker was the paler shadow of Jamaica Inn.

The writing was good. The author did a fantastic job of portraying the time period and the way of life of the people in this remote area of Cornwall at this time and the reasons why they would turn to such a heinous crime to enhance a way of life that was otherwise poverty-stricken. The book paints a very clear picture of the people, their dress and how they lived and there were some fascinating characters throughout the book. He captured the way of speaking in a way that felt authentic to the time period and differing social classes within the story. There is also a strong thread of superstition running through it which was really interesting to explore.

One of the main strengths of the book for me was the depiction of the very clearly delineated social structures within the population at this time, along both class and gender lines and how much this affected individual’s lives and what they were able to do. The main character, Mary, is a maverick who is fighting against both her class and her gender which are holding her back. Even within their mean and lowly village, she is at the bottom of the pecking order and is being kept down by the ‘bettermost’ when she tries to alleviate herself, and also shamed as a woman for wanting any kind of autonomy or self-determination. Lack of a male figure in their household exacerbates the problem. It is a fascinating inside into a time period and way of life that is totally alien to us and I loved this aspect of the book.

The downside was the fact that none of the characters were very sympathetic. Mary is rough and prickly and bitter, which is understandable and forgivable, but she is also very selfish and entirely motivated by avarice. Her goals are shallow and self-serving. Even when she thinks about bettering herself, she wants to do so purely with her own increased comfort and importance in mind, with no thought given to also raising up her mother and sister and I found it very hard to be too sympathetic to her for this reason. Most of the problems she is having are self-inflicted, she is no victim of circumstance. Even when she sets her cap at other people’s partners, it is not from genuine love but either lust or materialism, which are hard motivations to make a reader get behind a protagonist. Similarly, the main male character is weak and not particularly compelling as a romantic hero. The only really likeable character in the book is Mary’s sister Tegen.

That being said, having a deeply flawed protagonist is not totally fatal to the book, the plot was still involved enough to make it no hardship to read to the end. I was involved enough in watching the struggles within the social hierarchy play out that it carried me to the end. The mystery at the centre was a minor side interest and I was mildly interested but not desperate to know who did it. Everything got resolved very quickly at the end and it was quite dramatic but for some reason felt like a bit of a cop out.

My main complaint was that there was barely any reference to wrecking in this book, despite the title and I was a bit disappointed. There is a wreck at the beginning but we begin in the aftermath, but no clear details about how it is done, or whether it is the work or wreckers or an accident. It was not what I was hoping for and this has definitely coloured my opinion as well.

Overall, this is not a bad book and as an examination of social mores in a time and place long past it is fascinating but the actual characters and story left me unmoved and a little disappointed. The writing itself is good but not enough in itself to make this a book I will return to. This book has had a lot of hype and was snapped up quickly and for a substantial sum which added to my expectations but my overall feeling at the end was it did not live up to them and left me feeling ‘meh’.

I will start by saying that there isn’t actually much wrecking in this book. It happens at the start and from there on out it doesn’t happen again. So, for those looking for an exploration of wrecking should probably look elsewhere. While this was slightly disappointing I persevered regardless because it was probably my fault for not reading the blurb properly. I wanted to give this book a fair chance and to see what it was about – if not wrecking.

What it is about is a woman called Mary Blight, who gets caught up in the many changes in her small Cornish town when a Methodist minister Gideon Stone decides to rebuild the church and to start converting the ‘backwards’ people to the way of the lord. Yes, it’s all about religion. I would definitely say that the author did his biblical research, there’s scripture laced throughout and you get the sense of the religious leanings from the time. I can’t say whether this is a good description of Methodist faith at the time, but what I do know of that denomination seemed to be represented. I liked the way this book pushed at the was Christianity conflicted with local tradition, there are a lot of what might be called pagan rituals and superstitions in Mary’s town that don’t quite agree with the new minister’s teachings. Obviously, this process of ‘civilising’ was so much worse outside of Britain, but it is interesting to view it through the lens of this small town.

What I did not enjoy was the way that Mary was written. A lot of her character could have been exactly what I enjoy. She had a lot of bite to her, she wasn’t willing to take nonsense from people, she did what she wanted and then dealt with the consequences as they came. But Mary’s only motivation seemed to be to find a wealthy man. That was pretty much it. You could argue that is more to do with the idea of bettering herself, of finding an easier life, of learning and changing and all those slightly better things. But it just reads as ‘everything I do will be in aid of getting a man and nothing else is really significant.’ Obviously, that could just be my reading of it, but I have come to expect a lot from female characters and Mary wasn’t quite enough for me. Since the book is totally focussed on Mary this made the entire thing fall a little flat for me.

The other problem I had with this book is that not very much happens. I’m not expecting this to be full of action sequences and explosions or anything, but for the number of significant moments in the story, this book is quite long. I felt like that offset the pacing somewhat and made reading it quite slow. Again, that’s a matter of personal preference and if you prefer a slower burn then this may be the book for you.

I can see a lot of people very much enjoying this story, however, I found it a little too slow and a little too religiously heavy for my liking. I would have also liked a little more character development for Mary.

My rating: 3/5 stars

I received a digital advanced reader copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I can't resist a trip into the dark and murky past of our forbears and Wrecker plunged me into the world of bygone coastal Corwall.

(I must admit the beautiful cover drew me in like a moth to a flame)

This is a take of poverty stricken fishing folk who often struggle to put another pilchard on the table and whom desperation makes reckless. These villagers live in crude hovels with naught to their names but the hand me down pagan beliefs they have inherited. They eke out the meagre living they try to sustain with fishing and farming, by scavenging goods which have been washed up from the many shipwrecks which occur in the area.

In this twisty tale of times gone by we meet Mary Blight, a feisty feckless heroine, who lives with her ailing Mam and her beloved sister. Mary wants to better herself and is about to seize any opportunity that comes her way, but she is apt to make a bad decision or two:

like the time she goes to the beach to see what pickings she can find following a shipwreck and impulsively pulls a pair of expensive boots from the body of a dead woman whose body has already been mutilated by a previous wrecker, an act she is to come to regret.

Like the time she gets very drunk at a village gathering and lifts her skirts to try and ensnare a man who is promised to someone else, alienating herself from her peers.

Like rescuing a man from drowning and the attachment she makes to this man she rescues from the sea. Gideon Stone, a married Methodist minister who, after his salvation at Mary's hands finds in himself a burning ambition to save the villagers of Porthmorven from their pagan superstitions and returns to build them a chapel where he can preach and save their souls.

Mary is a character I rooted for, yet didn't wholly like, she is cunning with a mercenary streak but seems to lack the sharpness of wit required to fully make the most of her opportunities. She treats people badly and her motives are sometimes unclear but mostly driven by greed and understandable dissatisfaction with her lot.

The book is a gripping historical story, with love at its core and secrets and superstition at its heart, yet it's as far removed from a regency romance as the characters are from the drawing rooms of polite society.

A promising start was soon marred by resorting to a Poldark- esque and clinched depiction of Cornish life. Became quite repetitive and struggled to the end...

I enjoyed this book. . It is narrated by Mary a woman from a small Cornish community, whose life sums up the world of a small village, which is this book is interrupted by a new arrival Gideon. She is a likeable and engaging character who drives th plot. There are some gruesome and bloody scenes (ear removal in particular) but they are not gratuitous. The authors language is lyrical and easy to read, quite fast paced i was able to finish it quickly.
If I have any criticism it is that I felt the second half was much more rushed than the first.
I would recommend this as perfect for fans of historical fiction and anyone who loves the landscape of Cornwall.

I was given an advance copy of this work by NetGalley, the opinions are my own.