Well, nothing really happens in this novel and yet it is so beautifully written that it's totally worthy a reading.

Sarah Moss has this magical way of putting words to work in such a way that it's prose but sounds like poetry.

I'd like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

I spent many of my childhood holidays in the damp environs of the Scottish Borders, including in a log cabin, so the premise of Sarah Moss’s latest book immediately appealed to my nostalgic sensibilities. I had no idea what a rich, densely-packed, insightful read it was going to be in so many other ways.

The story, such as it is, follows twelve people relaxing in a Scottish holiday park, where the main, visible feature is the endlessly falling rain. There is no real meaty plot to form the book, instead we are given a series of internal monologues by different residents of the park, who range in age from children to retirees. The author makes the most remarkable job of giving us the authentic voices of each of the different characters which, although they are doing anything particularly memorable, bring the people vividly to life.

It may sound like not much occurs in the story, and this is a valid observation, but it matters not one jot to the appeal and rewards of the book. The internal observations we gain from the different narrators in their stream-of-consciousness internal pronouncements are more than enough to intrigue, engross and entertain. Moss has captured each of the characters perfectly, their thoughts so searing and authentic that you will find yourself laughing, crying, cringeing, grimacing and nodding along with them as you recognise the reflections and concerns that flit ethereal through their minds, and the way their thoughts skip and jump, making connections that make no sense and perfect sense at the same time. The writing is captivating and I could not get enough of it.

The thread tying all of the strands together is the reaction of the park residents to the inconsiderate behaviour of the occupants of one of the cabins, and the way this eventually played out left me shaken, disturbed and moved all at the same time. It was a shocking and perfect ending to the story, and captured and not-quite-tied up the mood of the novel in a lingering, melancholy and thought-provoking bow. This is a book that hangs around in your subconscious long after you’ve finished it, like a dream you haven’t fully deciphered and can’t quite shake.

The chapter featuring the young couple on their first holiday away together, particularly the thoughts running through the girl’s head during an intimate encounter, and the young mother given the blissful hour to herself that she has long been craving were my favourites. The first because it was so humorous and painful to read, the latter because I could relate to it so closely, but the whole book, which is so short it is really a novella, is packed full and dense with marvel and I know I will go back to it again and again to find fresh nuance to enjoy.

This book packs a massive and powerful bang for its size and was joyful to read. When I look back over the 2020’s reading at the end of the year, I know that this is one book I will remember and treasure as one of the stand out novels of the year. Given how unusual this year has been, and how I have lost myself in a larger than average number of great books, this is no mean epithet.

Well written but very short and alot of characters so it does not flow very well. I enjoyed The Tidal Zone much more.

Whilst very well written, the stream of consciousness style of writing in this story did not appeal to me, or grab my attention. I found many of the descriptive passages overlong and tedious. I could not connect with any of the characters, and found it ultimately a depressing story.

I am in a minority judging by other reviews, but unfortunately this book is just not for me.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my advance copy of this book.

Set over the course of one day at the height of summer in a run-down Scottish cabin park in the Trossachs, Summerwater is a short novella (not so easy to tell when reading on a kindle) that gives us access to the innermost thoughts of the inhabitants of six of these cabins – one from each in the morning and another in the afternoon.
With so many different viewpoints, it is almost like a series of linked short stories and does feel a bit disjointed at times. The stream of consciousness style of writing gives the reader a unique insight into every thought and feeling that passes through the character’s mind; in some cases we get the same situation from both partners, and the difference in their thoughts is very revealing.
Anyone who has ever taken a similar holiday in Scotland will be familiar with this type of weather; it’s par for the course. What I found strange was that very few of them ventured out, allowing themselves to be stuck indoors, as you don’t go to Scotland for the weather. One lady goes running, a teenage boy goes for a trip in his kayak, and the elderly couple go out in the car; otherwise everyone else mostly stays indoors. The writing emphasises the claustrophobic feeling of being trapped and shut in.
By being party to the thoughts of each of the characters, we learn that they watch each other, but there is very little interaction between them. There are some Ukrainians in one cabin having parties and playing loud music late into the night; also an ex-soldier camping in the woods. We do not hear what they are thinking which only adds to the suspicion and the tension.
Each of the characters has a distinct voice, but some of their thoughts are a bit insular and depressing. Between each chapter is a short piece on the natural world surrounding the park; perhaps a reminder that the humans are not the only creatures living there.
I have not read anything by Sarah Moss before, but will definitely try some of her earlier novels as the quality of the atmospheric prose more than made up for the abrupt and unsatisfying ending.
Thanks to Picador and NetGalley for a copy to review.

Wow. Another short but utterly gruelling and impactful read from Sarah Moss. She is so keenly observant and I love the sparseness of her writing.

Sarah Moss does it again.

This is a 'slice of life' novel set over the course of one day in a very rainy Loch Lomond chalet park. Each chapter has a different narrator which gives the multiple perspectives of the staycationers. There's bickering, tenderness, frustration, confusion and Moss channels these emotions and situations so vividly that each character captivates you.

The tension is palpable from the very first page to its shocking climax. I don't know how she does it. I'm now going to buy her entire back catalogue!

love Sarah Moss’s evocative, observant and very readable writing style, and I really enjoyed her latest novella Summerwater, which I believe has also been published under the title A Day Like This.

Summerwater is set over a couple of days in a remote loch-side holiday park in Scotland. The weather is definitely more water than summer, with torrential rain forcing the holidaymakers to spend most of the time inside their (once luxurious but now slightly faded) wooden cabins. Events unfold over a couple of days, as the inhabitants of the cabins spend their holiday reading, watching TV and getting on each other’s nerves. Tensions are also directed towards an Eastern European family who keep everyone awake at night with loud music and raucous partying.

Each chapter focuses on a different inhabitant of the cabins. There’s a retired doctor and his ailing wife, a young couple using the bad weather as an excuse to spend the day in bed and three families (or was it four, I have to admit I found it hard to differentiate between them) who are struggling to keep their children entertained due to the abysmal weather and lack of wifi. The strained, claustrophobic nature of family holidays, with their enforced proximity and pressure to have fun and the observant stream of consciousness narrative reminded me of Jon McGregor’s novels (which I love). It’s one of those books where nothing very much seems to happen but you can feel the tension mounting (a bit like the family holidays it depicts), which made the shocking ending even more powerful and unnerving.

'Under the hedges, in the hollows of tall trees, birds droop and wilt, grounded, waiting. Small creatures in their burrows nose the air and stay hungry.
There will be deaths by morning.'

Not having read any Sarah Moss before I was attracted to this book solely by the premise: over the course of one day, in a rain-soaked cabin park in Scotland, a group of disparate people try to keep themselves occupied before cabin fever sets in. We've all been there, right?

The first six chapter focuses on each of the families one at a time, and then the next six revisit them but from a different perspective (the husband rather than the wife, the child rather than the parent). Justine is addicted to running; David's wife Mary is struggling with the onset of dementia; Josh is determined that if he and Millie have good enough sex they will stay together forever; Alex just wants to escape his family and go kayaking; all Claire craves is some peace and quiet away from her family, but then doesn't know what to do with it; and Jack and Lola are determined to play outside, despite the rain, where they meet another child, Violetta.

Interspersed with these are small vignettes of descriptions of the natural world and the local wildlife, who themselves are trying to survive in the teaming rain. The overall impression, if I can compare other authors, is a blend of Jon McGregor meets Robert Macfarlane with Moss's unique voice, all of them blending beautiful and precise descriptions of the natural world whilst comparing and contrasting them to humankind's trivial little lives. There is beauty to Moss's prose, and in such a short book she gives a pretty rounded characterisation of those whom we meet. There is one family, however, that we don't hear from - an eastern European mother and her daughter, Violetta. We see them only through the (sometimes) hostile eyes of others, and there is perhaps a clue in the title to how we are meant to see this. Summerwater echoes the Yorkshire lake Semerwater, and indeed one of the characters, Mary, tries to remember a poem based on the legend of the creation of the lake, which pivots on a society spurning a visitor only for a poor couple on the outskirts of the city who take him in and feed him. A curse was laid on the town and it flooded. Clearly, Moss intends us, at least in part, to make connections between outsiders, water and a deadly reckoning.

Indeed, a sense of menace hangs over the whole book, with not only the descriptions of nature but also with the coming of night and the music blaring from one of the chalets. Ominously, all of the attention now lies on the chalet of the eastern European family, the 'other' and the 'outsider'.

Quietly devastating, this is a powerful and beautifully written novel than in 200 pages has enough impact to linger in your mind. The landscape dominates everything, and one of the unintended consequences of releasing the book now, in the middle of a global pandemic, is that as we all emerge from our enforced lockdown, the claustrophobia and sense of being stuck inside will resonate with many. Moss writes beautiful, lyric prose that haunts the novel. Subtle yet ominous, this is a wonderful book.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this title.)

Set in a Scottish cabin park, Sarah Moss' story is a sparse, delicate tale of 12 people going about their lives on a very rainy day.

This is a novel that dwells in details, there is no fast moving plot here. The story unfolds through views of different people as they go about their day in the holiday park; Justine who goes out running in the morning, Alex who takes his kayak out in wet and windy conditions; Mary who has retired and is beginning to lose her memory.

Each individual character is delicately drawn, each giving us a window into their hopes, fears and dreams whilst still interacting enough with the community that the tension heightens as the story draws to it's conclusion.

This book excels at drawing you and having you live the characters, the command of voice is wonderful and there is some great nature writing in between the larger character driven sections. Whilst there is little plot to speak off (one family making a lot of noise on the cabin site, other families unhappy), the motivations of the cabin dwellers is expertly teased out, and we are drawn along with them, whilst the tension builds and resolves to a satisfying conclusion.

This is a fine, fine, novel. It's characters feel real, their fears and anxious expertly laid out, each psyche laid bare, and relatable whilst the thin strands of narrative web weave around them and pull them together. I hope that Sarah Moss continues to write novels as good as this and I look forward to reading them.

Sarah Moss is at her observant and insightful best in this entertaining novel set during a long rainy summer’s day in a holiday park in Scotland, where we get inside the heads of 12 disparate people trying, with varying levels of success, to enjoy their vacation. The rain is relentless and each household has to deal with this enforced isolation as best they can. Some even feel brave enough to venture outside but most stay indoors and reflect on their lives and current situation - and we listen in to their thoughts. And, inevitably, they all watch each other and judge each other. The thread that binds them is that they are British, white, middle-class, privileged – except one cabin which houses someone from “eastern Europe”, whose thoughts we are not privy to and who by their otherness evoke ambiguous feelings in the other holidaymakers. It’s a claustrophobic portrait of a community effectively in lockdown, and it’s a moot point as to what sort of neighbourliness and sense of community they will demonstrate. A darkly comic post-Brexit, post-Covid novel and a great read.

"Summerwater" is a story of a group of holidaymakers cooped in a cabin park in the Scottish highlands, during the longest day of summer. Torrential rain, lack of wifi or telephone signal and the remote location, leaves them all restless. Each chapter of this slim novel is told from the perspective of a different person, their thoughts, worries and pettiness exposed. This is a case of a novel where very little happens, but the tension is right there, in beautiful descriptions of unleashed elements, in precise monologues, where people vent their frustrations, boredom and impatience. There are glimpses into the forest, the lake, the animals living there, each of them going on about their lives while humans talk, think and pass judgement. Sarah Moss is brilliant at internal monologues and observations, and we are pulled into the story, as we stare at the families enclosed in their own bubbles, each of the chapters a little window into someone’s life.

Before I requested a copy of this book I had read a lot of positive reviews and I was not disappointed. I loved this book from the beginning and could not stop reading. The descriptions are so detailed it's almost like you're watching a movie instead of reading a book. I could not put it down until it was finished.

It's a wet day in Scotland and the occupants of six cabins on a campsite have nothing to do except look out of their windows at the view and contemplate their lives and those of their neighbours.

All of life is here - children, teenagers, middle-aged parents, and the retired. They have different experiences, lifestyles and viewpoints so how will they relate to each other? Will we see friendship or conflict?

It's fascinating as the long, slow day stretches on, with a sense of gloom and foreboding building. The ending, though, is surprising and devastating.

A book to read on a long, slow, wet day, stuck inside with nowhere to go! Brilliant.

I was hand selling this title months before it was due out, I LOVE Sarah Moss, 'Ghost Wall' was my hightlight book from last year.
Summerwater not only met my expectations but exceeded them in everyway, Moss presents the conflicting voices of our day through holidaying strangers, creating a carefully crafted tale of the terrifying price of ignorance. Not one to miss.

Summerwater, Sarah Moss' latest book, has been described as a companion novel to her earlier release Ghost Wall. I can, having now read both novels, see the connection. Both books follow people who have left the comforts of modern life to in some way get closer to nature. In doing so they also get closer to the baser and more carnal aspects of being human they become more aware of their bodies, how they smell, their physical desires.

The book is broken up into headings and each section focuses on a different cabin in a Scottish holiday camp over the course of a day on during an unusually wet, cool summer. Each cabin contains its own climate, there is tension and conflict but there is also love and humour.

Summerwater would make a fantastic television adaptation as it is full of material ripe for expansion and development. The undercurrents of racism in post-Brexit Britain, for example, were acutely observed and didn't feel shoe-horned in for effect. I real the final pages desperate to know how it would all end and how all these lives would come together. It was a fascinating, devastating ending and one I will no doubt think about for days to come. Sarah Moss' writing style is wonderful, it takes some getting used to but once you do it is utterly compelling and engrossing. If you're looking for an intelligent summer read with a dark thread running through it, Summerwater would be well worth your time.

I have read a number of novels by Sarah Moss, I’ve loved her prose and the concise language she uses to evoke tension and atmosphere in her novels.
The story takes place on a rainy day by a Loch in Scotland. There are a number of holiday log cabins by the Loch and we learn how the events of the day are perceived by the occupants of each cabin. We learn about the couples and families and their relationship and issues. Minor grumbles and concerns are mulled over while all the time a sense of menace is building. There is a claustrophobic feel to the events with the families isolated in log cabins by a Loch on a rainy day. There are all trying to find an escape or ways to keep their children entertained on what is turning out to be hellish holiday. The only cabin occupants that we don’t know much about is the cabin where they appear to be enjoying themselves with late night parties. We touch on many themes including underlying middle class racism as the revellers are referred to by various East European references by the other occupants. Throughout the novel the tension rises as you feel that something shocking is about to occur.
Summerwater is an excellent, evocative novel. If you’ve read Ghost Wall (or any other Sarah Moss novel) then this won’t disappoint. If you haven’t read a Sarah Moss novel then this would be a good one to start with.

Well, Sarah doesn't ever let us down does she?! I'm glad I'm not in rainy Scotland in this particular holiday park! A beautiful, powerful and atmospheric book. This is perfect for my bookselling market (Cheltenham store) and I look forward to recommending it to many a customer.

At the end of a long single track road sits a holiday park, a small group of wooden chalets. With a lochside location surrounded by mountains it sounds like the perfect place to rest and relax, to get back in touch with nature and the simpler things in life, far away from normal everyday life. But the Scottish weather is proving a disappointment. The rain is constant. Getting out and about seems unappealing. There's little for the families on holiday at the park to do but stay indoors, and maybe watch the other holidaymakers.
A wife tries to outrun her problems, children are forced outside to play by the water, teenagers would rather be anywhere else. A young couple think of what their future holds: an older one reminisce about the past. One family, though, is marked out as 'different'. They play music and party late at night. They don't have the proper 'serious' clothing and footwear. Maybe you aren't allowed to have fun while the rain continues to pour and ruin everyone else's holiday?

Over the course of a day, tempers start to unravel, tension rises, and, whether it's from children spotting another child who's easy to bully, or from the solitary guy camping nearby, there's a feeling of trouble brewing.

Sarah Moss has perfectly captured that claustrophobic mood of sitting hunkered inside out of the rain, day after day, in an area where all the attractions - walking, swimming, cycling - are outdoors, of longing to go out but being soaked after a few minutes, while inside wet clothes steam but never dry out, and the windows fog up from condensation.
Following first one person, then another, we see the day unfold from different perspectives, and with each of them that uneasy tension builds. By close observation and dipping into their thoughts, at the end of the day/novel, these feel like people you know intimately, possibly better then their close families do. There's a certain similarity to Jon McGregor's If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, with the emphasis being on people going about a fairly ordinary day, doing little of importance, while unknown to them tragedy is about to strike.
And the ending ... well, that's one that will resonate for quite a while. DO NOT be tempted to skip ahead and see what happens. On a second or third reading you'll know how things work out; just once let the full shock hit you.

It says a lot about a book that even though there is no clear reason for the book - no central character, no particular incident to focus on, just a quiet commentary on people - I still couldn’t put it down, and read it over a day.
The book focuses on couples and families staying at an isolated holiday park in Scotland where the rain is never ending, and flits from one character to another’s’ thoughts and commentary on those around them.
The reason this had me so hooked is just how spot on the inner dialogue and commentary on others is - I was nodding along and feeling the frustrations!
I did find myself a little frustrated by the very end, where I suddenly found myself wanting more, but otherwise a great easy read!