The world has spent months in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic and now, as normality slowly returns, safety measures are still in place to ensure this does not occur again. Kate and her son, Matt, find themselves having to undergo a two-week quarantine period. Matt is happy to live off cheese toasties and distract himself with computer games, his adventurous mum, however, is struggling at not being able to feel the stiff breeze through her hair and the mud squelching around her hiking boots. She decides her own mental wellbeing is worth breaking the rules for, and decides to take a quick trek up the mountain bordering their home. She soon finds it also costs her, and her son Matt, a lot more than anticipated when one misstep means she does not return home that evening as planned.

This was another bleak yet beautiful read from Moss. The synopsis hinted at a thrilling and tense story but it was a far quieter one than could easily have been delivered. It was also a far more humane story, due to the focus taken, as well.

Thought, memory, and emotion played major roles in the book and it was through flashbacks and feelings that the reader truly began to understand these characters and their differing approaches to the the pandemic world they found themselves living in.

‘The relief of it, being out, being alone, starting to warm up from her own effort, wind and sky in her lungs, raindrops on her face, weather.’

Focusing on just four main characters, this slim novel captures different experiences of the 2020 lockdown with empathy, humour and a complete lack of judgement (not that we don’t see some judging responses from one peripheral character and in the imaginations of the main players). I could relate personally to only a fraction of these people’s experiences, not having had to ‘shield’ or self-isolate, but I feel that Sarah Moss has done a great job at portraying the claustropobia, isolation and anxiety many felt.

I think this book is a progression from her last one, Summerwater, in that we have one incident told from various characters’ perspectives, by way of their inner thoughts, and she writes this way very effectively. They each come across as individuals, reflecting on events from their own viewpoints, speaking for many in a similar situation (I am thinking here particularly of Alice and her daughter, whose dialogue is spot on). I like her writing very much. She is outstanding at creating tension (my main impression from all my reading of her books), built up here by her characters’ speculation and middle-of-the-night dread about what might be going on.

The first book I’ve read dealing directly with our recent lockdown and it will be hard to better for its subtlety and depth of feeling. Highly recommended.

I didn’t think I’d ever want to read a pandemic book, however The Fell is written so beautifully and has captured the zeitgeist so perfectly that I would view it as essential reading. I love the way Sarah Moss includes different perspectives of both the pandemic and the situation featured in the novel – the judgements, the narrow-mindednesses, the community and the isolation. The topic itself is close to my heart as I too am an outdoor-loving herbal tea-drinking “type” and the thought of not being able to leave my house at all and escape to nature and the outdoors for mental wellbeing is challenging. I was pleased to see the input from a Mountain Rescue team, as knowing a few of them myself, the view of the character Rob is one that is common with MR folk – they are as understanding and non-judgemental as you can get when it comes to mishaps in the outdoors, unlike many casual onlookers. Each character, even the ones who feature fleetingly, are vividly brought to live and you feel the book could have been expanded in many directions, however the brevity is what makes it all the more incredible.
Sarah Moss is most definitely a must-read author.

This is a short, sharp and cleverly written novel about many of the fears and thoughts we all have in the new world we are living with the pandemic. The story is told from different people's perspectives as a single mother decides to sneak out one evening and take a walk in the hills against the lock down rules, but injures herself and is stuck.
Sarah doesn't use any extraneous words so not every one will like the style of writing and of course, being in the middle of lock downs etc world wide, it also won't appeal to people who read stories to escape what we are all experiencing right now. But for many this is the sort of book you will read more than once because of the many subtle layers throughout.

The Fell is a story of lockdown. Of pandemic. Of the impact on generations. The pressure of those with caring responsibilities and the impact of those living alone.

The plot focuses on Kate. An outdoorsy single mother who is required to self-isolate during the UK’s second lockdown in November 2020. Missing her daily walks on the local fell, she intends to sneak off for an hour of fresh air in the knowledge she’s highly unlikely to bump into anyone. However, her quick outing turns sour when she gets injured, leaving her young son wondering where she is and her elderly neighbour in a quandary about what to do.

This short novel is told as flowing streams of thought from 4 main protagonists. It is an absolute delight and touches on many of the concerns felt by many people globally in recent years. It’s getting a lot of buzz, which is hugely well deserved.

Thanks to Picador, Pan Macmillan and Netgalley for an ARC.

I waited a while before posting this review. I admire and enjoy Sarah Moss's writing and most other readers have clearly loved this book, but it didn't work for me.

It is the first novel set in lockdown that I have read - Ali Smith's Summer did contain elements of lockdown - but this has lockdown and the impact of covid and lockdown as its key theme. Set over 24 hours it takes the form of the streams of consciousness of four characters, a single parent and her teenage son, currently in self-isolation, her neighbour, also self-isolating due to cancer treatment, and a volunteer mountain rescuer.

There is action in the form of a a dramatic incident, but the focus is on the internal and the ways in which lockdown has affected different individuals. So far so good, but I found the internal musings almost banal and predictable - feeling trapped, fear of death, remembering to count blessings, finding solace in nature, longing for human touch or more human contact - and for me nothing more than has already been recounted in numerous newspaper and online articles.

I am glad I read it but I am not rating it as highly as other reviewers. With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a review copy.

Living in the environment in which this is set, The Fell seemed as if it would encapsulate so much of my own feelings/experiences that I hoped this would be a book I found myself falling in love with. I wasn’t disappointed.
The story is deceptively simple. A mother, Kate, finding the restrictions of lockdown mentally challenging is struggling with the demands of a period of enforced self-isolation. Though it’s illegal, one afternoon she takes her backpack and walks out onto the hills of the Peak District. She doesn’t tell her teenage son she is going, a neighbour sees her leave and says nothing, but when she doesn’t return and night is drawing in the choice is made to call out Mountain Rescue.
Fragments of thoughts and we get a range of perspectives as the hunt for Kate goes through the night. We read the thoughts of Kate, her son, the neighbour - Alice, and mountain rescue volunteer Rob. It was surprisingly easy to read about the thoughts and feelings of each towards the lockdown of November 2020. The nuances of each characters’ reactions to events was well-captured, and though much of the focus tended to the mundane I felt it was an approach that allowed us to reflect on the ideas explored. Where this book won me over was with the descriptions of an environment which I deeply love, but also respect…knowing just how easily it can go wrong.
Thank you to Picador and NetGalley for granting me the opportunity to read this in advance of publication. I’ve already reserved a physical copy of this and can see myself re-reading this.

I loved this book. I would love to quote parts of it here for you to see how beautifully written it is, but I didn't know how to choose or how to not put the entire book in the comments.

I can't believe we are already reading fiction set in the pandemic. It feels very weird when I still feel very much IN the pandemic. There have been a couple of books I picked up that addressed it very dismissively and I immediately DNF'd. I'm not, nor do I think I ever will be, emotionally able to do that.

So picking up this one felt like a risk. It is set in the November lockdown in the the UK of 2020. It was, looking back, the worst time for me. I felt unmoored, lonely and my motivation to do anything over the bare minimum was nonexistent at the same time I was increasingly desperate to get out of the house, see people, do literally anything other than look at the inside of my house any longer. I planted hundreds of bulbs in the freezing cold in the end - anything to not be sat inside.

That's what this book encapsulated for me - it somehow pulls together the disparate parts of this experience and reflects them to you in a way that both holds suspense over the course of the book for a missing woman who went walking on the fells late at night after finally snapping with the weight of the pandemic, and also reflects back to you an emotional experience that feels somewhat validated after reading.

This is a beautifully written book from the viewpoints of several people surrounding Kate - her son, neighbour and a mountain rescue worker. They portray the harsh realities of how difficult this experience felt, no matter your circumstances, once we were 6 months in with no expectation of an end point. It is a profound reading experience that has left me very, very intrigued by Sarah Moss's blacklist if she can understand and reflect on others this deeply and honestly.

I thought this was going to be a ‘bandwagon’ book, no doubt one of very many on the theme of surviving a 21st century pandemic. But it is more than that - the writing has a depth and candour that must resonate with all of us who have not succumbed to the virus, but have suffered the anxiety, isolation and boredom that it has brought into our lives. The stream of consciousness style of the writing was just a little irksome at times, but insight into the minds of the characters Sarah Moss is writing about and the empathy with which she writes makes a little effort worthwhile, and the story itself is compelling enough to keep the reader engrossed until the end of the book. It centres on Kate, single parent of a teenage son, who cannot take the restriction of compulsory quarantine any longer and rashly decides to head for the hills of the Peak District as night begins to fall. The consequences of this are predictable, but the inner monologues of Kate, her son, her neighbour and her rescuers are real and compelling and make for a read with plenty of momentum.

This was so good! Read it in one sitting and contains everything I love about Moss' work. What makes her a stand out author and means her books are such page turners is her profound insight into the human condition and her incredible ability to write our innermost thoughts with such compassion and integrity.
The Fell is about grace and generosity. It's about weakness and strength. It's about life and death. It's about the ordinary against a backdrop of the extraordinary.
Is it too soon for a book about lockdown? We're in safe hands here. Beautiful, heartbreaking, yet full of hope.
With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

What an excellent read this is! Whilst a precis of the plot suggests anything but (single parent of teenage son feeling penned in by lockdown goes walking on moor and is badly injured), ‘The Fell’ is a superb rumination on responsibility, guilt, and compassion. It explores the concepts of confinement and neighbourliness, alongside the particular freedom that the natural world promises in the face of societal restrictions.
Sarah Moss captures not just the strong bonds of love between mother and son, albeit woven through with entirely credible threads of irritation, but also their individual fears as they face crises of injury and absence. Whilst the pandemic is clearly the setting for this story, the virus is not at its heart. As ever, Moss focuses on the universal. There are no easy answers to questions posed, just an acknowledgement through her characters and their situations that making mistakes is part of the human condition, alongside bravery and resilience. As her final sentence states: ‘Life, then, to be lived somehow.’
An unflinching look at our follies and fears which also honours that which sustains us in times of trouble. Highly recommended.
My thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

I enjoyed Summerwater, so I was excited to give The Fell a chance. My interest only increased when I read that it is set in the covid pandemic. We have all been reading books the last year and a half that have felt like things of the past. Even contemporary fiction felt dated to me, because it did not reflect our new reality. So I was curious to see how I would feel about The Fell.
Unfortunately, it's not a book for me. I loved the vignette style of Summerwater, but this book is set up more 'traditionally', and sometimes it felt deliberately confusing, which is not a style I like. So I didn't think it was bad - it just didn't vibe with me personally.
There's no question that Sarah Moss is excellent at mood writing, she definitely understands her craft, so three stars for that!

A compelling read set during the strange times that we faced in 2020, this novel tells the story of a woman leaving her home during a stint of self-isolation for what she believes to be a short walk, to alleviate the symptoms of cabin fever. Claustrophobic and reminiscent of Max Porter.

This is the second book from Sarah Moss I have read. The first being 'Ghost Wall' which I absolutely loved.

'The Fell' is told from multiple perspectives and takes place during the global covid pandemic. It explores the loneliness and isolation felt by many during the periods of lockdown. There is so much tension and atmosphere put on the pages of this novel and I read it in one sitting.

I think this novel will hit some people hard as it is honest and raw and touches on suicidal thoughts as well as exploring mental health and the impact of covid. I found this book hard to read at times as lockdown and the emotions that accompany it was an experience that so many experienced.

Another impressively stark ruminative impression of England in crisis, with that same deceptively-simple style both Moss and Ali Smith seem to wield against national backsliding better than anyone else. Compulsive, complex and wonderfully readable.

Thank you to Net Galley for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

A brave and honest narrative in which the author has chosen to examine the lives of a handful of characters as they deal with their own realities of a 21st century pandemic. During the course of one evening and night we are shown despair, kindness, empathy and small-mindedness. The characters are utterly human, with flaws and strengths, and we feel their pain.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGally for the opportunity to review this book.

On a cold November evening in 2020 a woman slips quietly out of her house and disappears up the hill. Kate is in the middle of a two-week quarantine period, but she just can’t take the confinement of her small house anymore. Nobody will see her going so no one will ever know. Soon however, Kate is badly injured in a fall, and a mountain rescue operation is mounted…
“The Fell” is a keenly observed, darkly funny and often unbearably tense novel. It will stir the whole gamut of emotions - rage, sadness, and happiness at the kindness of others. The world depicted in this story is one we all recognise from our own experiences of lockdown, and it is a superb book about compassion and about survival.

I am still waiting for Moss to write another book that hits me as hard as her absolute masterpiece 'Ghost Wall', but she remains one of my favourite novelists with her sharp, concise and keenly-observed stories.

'The Fell', like the author's last novel 'Summerwater', provides a snapshot over a day/night, moving between several characters bound together by an impulsive decision that I could all too easily understand. Much of the narrative is stream-of-thought in nature, and it's totally immersive (as always, with Moss). A finely-detailed reality for the reader to slip into.

I've given four stars as I didn't quite enjoy 'The Fell' as much as 'Summerwater', probably because the latter had so many witty moments whereas the former is more uniformly bleak, and I really wish the novel had been a little longer - although short novels are of course Moss' modus operandi...

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for this ebook in exchange for an honest review)

I didn't think I would be particularly interested in reading anything based around the COVID-19 pandemic but I made the exception for this one as I enjoy Sarah Moss' last novel so much! It's a short novel about a woman who has broken quarantine to go for a walk and fallen and injured herself. The book is told from the perspective of several people and different views on whether they think this woman has done something wrong by leaving the house to go for a walk in a remote area when she should be in quarantine. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Kate is struggling through a mandatory two week quarantine due to exposure to Covid-19. Used to her freedom and her daily walks up onto the rugged peaks where she lives, she is mentally and physically frustrated, worried about paying her bills, and increasingly claustrophobic. As dusk draws in a few days into quarantine, Kate decides to go for a quick walk up onto the moors. She knows she won't see anyone up there, and it will do her the world of good. But when Kate falls and badly injures herself, she is at the mercy of the elements and reliant on her teenage son to raise the alarm. The only problem is, he doesn't know when she left or where she's gone...

Sarah Moss is, inarguably, a wonderful writer, but I struggled with the writing style in this one. I found the endless internal monologues and sentences running on uninterrupted for whole paragraphs jarring and distracting, and the whole plot is pretty much summed up in the blurb - there are no surprises, and no real storyline beyond Kate going missing and getting injured. Some people will love the way the narrative is almost exclusively internal, but I just didn't take to it.

I did finish "The Fell" but it was one of those rare books that left me feeling deeply dissatisfied - I know it's well written, I know others will love it, but I didn't feel I'd gained anything from reading it.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publishers, who granted me a free ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.