I was so intrigued by the premise of this book and it honestly was so much better than I expected it to be it is an incredible read.

Beautifully written, strangely engaging .. 'strangely' because it's unexpectedly gripping .. a young man, whose mom translates Ovid for a living, leaves the isolated cottage shared with her son for an overnight visit to her dying dad just when a huge storm is brewing. Finding a sodden, choking man on the beach, the boy drags him home through the storm where the bedraggled giant-of-a-man coughs up seaweed and other marine vegetarian stuck deep in his lungs. The young man cannot find help. We skip years ahead and he returns .. his mother is dead .. he reflects on his closeness to the land around his childhood cottage, and revisits it .. accepting the keys to buy? To rent? in final pages. Well done and moving .. you won't put it down.

This was a short but well developed book with a killer atmosphere. The setting matched the vibe of the story as it was so eerie and intense. The only thing that let me down was the characters. They just didn’t really seem all that interesting to me which made it hard to care about what happened to them. Overall, a book worth reading.

I actually ended up DNF-ing this book as it just didn't connect with me. The writing was beautiful but something about the story didn't grab me and I found myself unfortunately not wanting to pick it up. It was most likely just wrong book at the wrong time, as I am a big mood reader, and I have put it back on my TBR to pick up at another time.

The North Shore is a very sophisticated first novel. It evokes a strong sense of place but, at the same time, conveys a feeling of timelessness. This novel took me by surprise. It is described as a gothic debut, and yes, there is, especially at the beginning, a gothic feel, but there is much more. Set in north Norfolk - a place I love -in the front, we have the story of a young boy home alone during a major storm. In the growing darkness, he goes down to the shingle beach and finds a half-naked man washed up on the shore, a man he at first believed to be dead. With great difficulty, he manages to get the man back to his home, and from there, the story gets stranger and darker. Afterwards, the report shifts focus to the narrator as an adult. He is now a well-known botanical illustrator trying to untangle the truth behind his childhood experience. In this part, he has documented his research on metamorphosis. Since his mother was a translator of classical texts, he is familiar with the works of Ovid and the stories about humans turning into plants. He analyzes works of art by Botticelli and Hieronymus Bosch, which depict the same changes. He attempts to connect these myths and the events he remembers. This book is unique in how it transforms as you read, reflecting the protagonist's search for the truth behind his memories. It's a challenging book to categorize because there's no straightforward plot - the storyline constantly shifts and evolves, telling stories and examining details. What stands out the most is the stunningly beautiful writing, with vivid descriptions of the coast and the absolutely breathtaking storm. I had expected one thing when I first picked it up, but it turned into something entirely different, much like the narrator's memory.
The themes of isolation, memory, and metamorphosis are explored throughout the book, with nods to Shakespeare's Tempest, Ovid, and various artistic and historical sources. Despite this, the writing remains grounded and descriptive. It's almost as if you can smell and touch everything you're reading about.
#thenorthshore #netgalley #generalfiction #literayfiction

An enjoyable read, well written and entertaining. Hadn't read this author before but would consider reading again.

A wild storm batters the coast . Left alone whilst his mother spends time with her father as he lays dying. He tries to keep the weather out. Next morning whilst examining the damage to the house & roundabout he sees something on the beach. It is a mystery how he got there -if only half alive. It is a struggle to get him back to the house. Enroute & inside the house he vomits a vast amount of sea life. The rest of the book deals with the narrator trying to make sense of what he saw.

Looking at other reviews, there are many who loved this book. Sadly I'm not one of them. The first part was atmospheric, creepy & well described. After that I struggled to find something that really held this story together but I'm afraid it eluded me- I did love the cover though! Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this strange book.

This was not really for me. I can see why other people enjoyed it as I felt it was well written it jist wasn't my cup of tea. Maybe I will go back to it one day!

I was really interested in this book and didn't finish, but it was great, and I will buy the book to finish there.

An isolated man tells his story, from being lost in a Norfolk storm to finding his roots again. This is an absorbing and transformative story that follows the main character and how his experiences change him over time. Surreal and gothic atmospheres, illogical events and missing parents all add to the sinister tone and sense of foreboding that pervades the book.

I loved the language, the classical references and the feeling of surrender and horror as the storm throws up more than driftwood and storm debris on a desolate beach. It's a fascinating book and a satisfying read.

This is a difficult book to review - I loved it, but it's hard to describe why. The opening is engrossing, with the narrator as a teenager coming across a mysterious man on the beach after a storm, and the bizarre series of events that unfold as he tries to help him, at the same time seeing his fear as a boy on the brink of manhood and his confusion about how to deal with the situation. The next sections of the book are musings on what happened that night, on metamorphosis and transformation, the fallibility of memory, and on the role of myth and art in our understanding of the world. This book may be unconventional, but it is engrossing and beautifully written.

This novel took me by surprise. It is described as a gothic debut and yes, there is, especially at the beginning a gothic feel, but there is much more. Set in north Norfolk - a place I love -in the beginning we have the story of a young boy home alone during a major storm. In the growing darkness he goes down to the shingle beach and find a half naked man washed up on the shore, a man he at first believes to be dead. With great difficulty, he manages to get the man back to his home and from there the story gets stranger and darker. The story then moves on and our adult narrator - now an established botanical illustrator/artist - is trying to make sense of what happened to him as a boy, trying to find the truth behind the experience. This second part is made up of notes that he has made about metamorphosis. His mother translated classical texts and so our narrator know the works of Ovid and he relates the ancient myths, how humans changed into plants. He examines works of art by Botticelli and Hieronymus Bosch which depict the same changes. I had to google these to remind myself of the subject matter. He is looking for the connection between these stories and myths to the event that he thinks he remembers. And just as in the stories, humans transform into plants then this book also seems to transform as you read on - as he tries to discover if his memories are true. This is a difficult book to categorise as there is no real plot - what there is seems to transform and slip form one thing to another, it tells stories, it examines details. Above all the writing is beautiful and the description of the coast, the storm are breath-taking. I picked it up expecting one thing and it transformed into something different. very much like our narrator's memory.

This isn't the sort of book that would normally grab me, it felt quite esoteric and I'm not sure I understood all of it but I loved it. What I took from it was reflections on the interconnectedness of people and nature, and the fragility of both. It also centred the place it was set - North Norfolk - with vivid descriptions of that beautiful setting. The writing was beautiful too, almost lyrical.

*Many thanks to Ben Tufnell, Little, Brown Book Group UK, and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.*
Definitely a novel that comprises several elements, magical realism including, and the one that takes the reader on a journey which is enigmatic and thus not easy to define. There is a child, with a mum and Grandper, no father around, there is a devastating storm and a find on the beach and metamorphosis of the find, there is an intimate journal of adult life and there is an unexpected twist at the very end. This novel is intriguing and opens several alleys to interpretation. I liked the opening and was intrigued by the protagonist's profession but at times I felt lost as well. This may be what the Author had in mind.

I'm not sure why but I loved this book.

It is a strange mix of magical realism, dreams, myths and even, perhaps, childhood memories warped by time.

The start of the book gives us an odd tale of a boy finding a naked man on the shore, seemingly washed up after a violent storm. The tale of this man becomes stranger and stranger until its conclusion.

The remainder of the book is the narrator wondering exactly what (if anything) he found the morning after the storm. It also encompasses other recollections of what has washed up on beaches and the use of plants as part of fairy stories and myths throughout the ages.

I spent a bit of time Googling the references to certain artworks and being amazed at how little I remember if actual sculptures and paintings to the reality. Primavera by Botticelli is an example of this where we remember the central figure but I had certainly forgotten the figures around her.

I love a book that challenges my perceptions of reality and this book has that in abundance. The writing is beautiful and conjures up landscapes seemingly without effort.

I would definitely recommend this book if you like something a little different. I also hope that the multi-talented Mr Tufnell writes more fiction.

Thanks to Netgalley for the chance to read this ARC.

On the first glance, The North Shore seemed like my perfect book: described as gothic, a mystery, with elements of folklore. Upon reading, however, Ben Tufnell's debut turned out to be something else entirely. It started promising and intriguing, but it soon morphed into a bunch of, although beautifully written, words that didn't add up to anything resembling a story. To my utter disappointment, I found it confusing and not at all connected to the mysterious man who came from the sea and ended up puking leaves and seaweed - the best bit of this book!

Having seen a few other reviews around, it might just be a Marmite kind of a novel, but I'm sad because I expected to love it and it was not what the synopsis promised. The middle section, when we return to our narrator, the coming-of-age element of the novel, and the seaweed man, got my hopes up again, only to quickly move into another part: philosophical, too cosmic for my liking and completely plotless.

The North Shore is a quick read and definitely an experience, but it was not for me. Alas! There's some stunning writing hidden in-between, but I would rather read more about the mysterious man who came from the sea. Thanks so much to Little Brown and NetGalley for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

"The North Shore" by Ben Tufnell is definitely going to divide readers into one of two camps: those who love it and those who just don't get it. I'm in the first camp (not that I totally get it). I think it has to be a book that you are in the mood to read, and luckily for me, I was and breezed through it. Although not named, I suspect that the book is set in North Norfolk, an area of the UK I am very quickly growing to love. It is very other worldy and full of local tales and legends, all of which come out in this book. I preferred the traditional narrative sections but could put up with the other sections as they added to the ambience of the book. A brilliant first novel.

Rounding up to three stars.

Very much a "it's not you, it's me" book, because I just didn't quite get what was happening.
The beginning was interesting, but at some point it lost me, and despite reading to the end, I can't say I understood it.

A book about liminality and metamorphosis which itself spreads across the boundaries between fact, fiction, and outright fantasy and which transforms from what is initially a gothic style mystery to musings in art.

The book opens with a section (“North Shore”) set on the day of a ferocious storm. The first party narrator who still (despite being a young adult) lives with his mother between heathlands and salt marshes, is alone during the storm as his mother is visiting his dying grandfather. The next morning, venturing out, into an eerily deserted village to see what damage has been caused, he finds what he initially thinks is a dead body in the beach. To his shock the man turns out to be alive although incapable of communication and retching up seaweed. He drags the man back to his house where he continues to cough up vegetal matter.

The novel then shifts forwards in time, in “Knotty Entrails”, the narrator, now a well-known botanical illustrator and living away from his childhood home, muses on a number of interrelated subjects including: thresholds, liminality, metamorphosis (and Ovid’s “Metamorphoses”), mermaids, translation (his mother’s profession), Botticelli’s La Primavera, flux, flood, “The Tempest”. The North Sea setting and the way it prompts a series of interlinked ideas is partly reminiscent of Sebald but I think it would be safer to say both draw in the same inspiration as this writing is stylistically different and perhaps more reminiscent of the clear delineations of a Sagasti than the wandering prose of Sebald.

We then return to the North Shore account of the discovery of the man - which are set in somewhere which is almost but not quite Norfolk (Kings Eye, North Witch, Cranmer, a railway almost like the Poppy Line but terminating much nearer the coast) and his either disappearance of transformation to a tree.

In the next section “Knapped Flint” we come to realise the “North Shore” sections are a diary/journal the narrator discovers when older. And we then return to the Sagasitan sections - which are increasingly pre-occupied with the idea of humans transforming into plants - drawing from Greek legend through to classic 50s science fiction films, Hieronymus Bosch, Pinocchio, Mandrakes. The rather fantastical story the journal tells matches the narrator’s vegetal metamorphosis musings more than they do his current more prosaic memories of the events of the storm. This section ends as “Knotty Entrails” starts with musings on “The Tempest”

A final section draws the threads together as the narrator decides to return to the village of his youth.

Overall I found this an absolutely fascinating novel – a book I think I would have naturally really enjoyed but one where my enjoyment was enhanced by its evocative setting in my favourite part of the world.

A dense read, The North Shore soon strays from the promise of it's opening into a lofty and philosophical exploration of nature and myth, with each chapter separated, one following the continuing narrative of the man and the seaweed, the other taking the form of notes of the nature of being, metamorphosis, history, art. A very different novel than what it's description might suggest.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for access to this ARC.