On a remote, “wave-fucked” Irish island Nell’s scratching out a living, barely making enough to sustain her work as an artist. Her commitment to a blend of non-commercial land and durational art is somehow tied up with Nell’s island roots, a place that’s been home for generations of her family. But the island can be a wild, sinister space plagued by strange sounds that suddenly break through, haunting everyone who can hear them - a variation on The Hum that creates a divide between those who can and can’t experience it. Nell’s precarious but settled existence is thrown off course when she takes on a project for a local group. These are women who live together in the ruins of an old convent; known as the Iníons (daughters) the group’s midway between cult and retreat, presided over by the enigmatic Maman. Nell’s brief is to work on the testimonies of individual Iníons in time for a special Samhain ceremony celebrating the community’s thirtieth anniversary. But Nell’s progress is complicated by her growing links to incomer Nick, a famous actor intent on penetrating the Iníons’ inner sanctum, and by an affair with troubled local Cleary.

Critic, artist and editor Sinéad Gleeson’s atmospheric debut novel features some memorable scenes. I particularly relished the various nods to folk horror, Irish legend, folklore and history. There’s an admirably strong sense of place – I could picture the landscapes, at times almost feel the winds sweeping across the island. But even so Gleeson’s fragmented narrative didn’t fully convince me or entirely hold my attention. The pacing seemed off somehow, and I couldn’t work out what Gleeson was ultimately trying to communicate. The most interesting episodes were those centred on Nell and her attempts at producing artworks embedded in a broader history of women’s creative work. But I was far less invested when the spotlight moved away from Nell; and I found the numerous shifts between character perspectives abrupt and frustrating. I liked the idea of the Iníons but I wanted more about their background, a clearer sense of what they represented, and the possible reasons behind their leader Maman’s subsequent actions.

I loved this debut novel. It’s beautifully written and quite eerie. I liked that the story was about femininity and thought Nell was a believable character who I could relate to.
Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Nell draws the inspiration for her art from the wild, windswept island that is her home. Despite her passion for her surroundings, and her interest in the sacred feminine, she is surprised to be offered a very special commission: the creation of a work of art for the Inions, a secretive female community comprised of women from across the globe who have sought sanctuary of a sort on the island.

In this wilderness setting, where murmurs of the supernatural seem all too natural, Nell embarks on a journey of self discovery. And in the process of exploring the artwork she is creating for an unfamiliar community, she is soon to learn a great deal more about the Inions than she expects...

This is an unusual novel, for both its intensity and its originality. Well conceived and very well written, it is worth checking out if this kind of story is your jam. It gets 3.5 stars.

Sinead Gleeson is best known for her 2019 essay collection – “Constellations” about the female body and her own experience of year of illness, but this is her debut novel, one which draws on her experience of collaboration with artists, which took a dozen years or so to write and which she has described as “a novel about an island, a mysterious sound and an artist called Nell”.

Nell lives on an unnamed (and deliberately unspecified) remote Irish Island – something of a 12 hour ferry ride from the mainland and subject to a very seasonal and sporadic tourist trade but which otherwise depends on a declining fishing trade and functions on close to a barter economy.

Nell is a large scale conceptual artist – when the book starts she is working on a detailed beach carving.

During the short period in which the novel is set up – in the months leading up to the 31 October/1 November (Samhain in the Celtic Pagan calendar) a number of things peturb the uneasy equilibrium her life on the Island has attained: an Islander Cleary returns to the Island to nurse his sickening Uncle and he and Nell start a slightly hesitant relationship punctuated by Cleary reluctantly going to see to make some money; a famous American film actor Nick (who claims to have Island descent) stays on the Island – he and Nell also sleep together on one occasion; Nell is invited up to Rathglas – a cliff top former convent which now houses a largely self-sufficient commune of women from around the world who call themselves the Inions (ancient Gaelic for Daughters) – to discuss a commission.

The commission is described to her by Maman (the apparently leader of the commune) as taking the small testimonials all of the women given when joining the community and turning them into an illustrated book as a commemoration of the community to form part of their annual Samhain ceremony. Nel reluctantly accepts – her real artistic bent is not towards writing – and her unease is only increased when she finds over time that the community is a lot more divided than she had assumed, also more coercive (with all of the Inions required to give up their identity documents on joining) and that the divisions include doubts about the appropriateness of her project (particularly as the testimonials are meant to be private) and is further exacerbated when Maman invites Nick to film at the community.

However Nell does find a sense of community among the Inions and Maman’s commission even if not entirely well-intention, does restore to her a sense of why she makes art and some choices she needs to make to put her life and artistic output back on track – so she continues her project and even agrees to extend to designing a ceremonial costume.

The island is also impacted by a mysterious humming sound – one most likely to be heard by women and which seems to lead to a number of physical and mental impacts on the Islanders – I know that similar legends were part of what motivated the writing of the book but I was never entirely clear what narrative purpose this device was meant to achieve.

By contrast another device – a stake used historically for the execution by drowning of witches, adulterers and other miscreants – has from early on Chekhov’s Gun type overtones, or perhaps I should say Chekhov’s basket as the book culminates in the Samhain ceremony where my hopes (and assumption) that the book would not take a turn into “Wicker Man” territory were partially disappointed.

Nell is the main third person point of view in this book which is made up of nearly 80 short chapters – a number of which do switch to other viewpoints (not entirely successfully I have to say as the book is so weighted towards Nell and the jar in switching to another viewpoint and so away from what can feel like simply an internal third party account to a roving omniscient narrator is, due to the chapters’ brevity, typically not really rewarded in any insight into the motivations of the other characters).

But despite all of these small criticisms there is much to like in this book

One of the highlights of the book is the authenticity of the descriptions of Nell’s artistic work – an authenticity attested in a detailed end “Note on Art and Artists” which lists the real lives works and their creators that inspired the novel, but also in the way in which the novel captures Nell’s struggles both with the fickleness of artistic acclaim (“Commissions have dried up, emails have grown less frequent” since her twenties when she was invited all over the world” – now her living is a lot more hand to mouth and includes things like giving Island tours and previously cleaning holiday cottages) and with the practicality of her installations (a drone to check her sand carvings, will tree branches hold the speakers for a sound project).

And there is some excellent writing – I particular liked this simile.

"She was glad to be done with Nick. And sad, kind Cleary would be back soon, to routines and his uncle and rabbit corpses drip-draining in the bathroom. At times, she felt like Newton’s cradle. A man at either end, and Nell as the metal orbs, hemmed in, struck, and struck again. An endless clack, clack, clack. One at each ear, talking in and out of her brain."

And overall I think it will appeal to fans of what seems to be a growing niche-genre of books like Alice Albania’s “Cwen” and Evie Wyld’s “Bass Rock”, Elizabeth O’Connor’s “Whale Fall” and Carys Davies “Clear”.



On an island that grapples with a recurrent hum phenomenon, the eerie sound work was probably a misstep. An unwelcome reminder of the uncanny notes that plague this place. In another life, she could be someone else’s wife. Or a botanist, or trapeze artist. Swinging on a meniscus rope every night. She might even be what Cleary said, a witch. Wife. Mother. Those words are of no interest. Artist. That is the only thing that matters. Iníon. Did Maman decide that’s what they should be called? If it was possible to stop time, she would. To make all the things she wants to make. It feels, some days, that the things that matter are slipping away. Two opposing kinds of momentum. The urge to resist involvement. With men, jobs, collaboration. To keep to herself. That’s what has always worked. The simple throughline, its disconnection, is its own kind of freedom.

I had the pleasure of attending an event to see Sinead Gleeson at the Cambridge Literary festival yesterday and so I am appreciative that I had been given an opportunity to read her atmospheric and suspenseful novel. She talked about the theme of islands and also about the Maman character and how it's interesting that some people always want to be in charge. She also discussed the difference between the process of writing Hagstone and writing her previous non-fiction work.

This was a wonderfully written book with a great dark and creepy atmosphere. The characters were realistic and there was a good sense of place and time
I also liked the length of this book as it felt very much like no filler and very much vibes and atmosphere

This is one of those books that I picked up for half an hour, and didn't look up from until the end. Nell the driving force for the whole thing, a loner, an artist, but open , warm and sympathetic to all.
The cult vibes coming off the Inions was definitely my thing.
It's a little bit strange, but I liked it a lot.
Beautifully written.