Member Reviews
It's an odd feeling to read a book that you could swear you have read before. I even checked my Goodreads shelves just in case I was misremembering but, no, I haven't read it. The strange familiarity did kind of throw me as I spent a good part of the book waiting for my brain to remember why the story was so familiar. I know that this de ja vu changed my experience and is definitely a big part of why I liked Fell but I didn't like it.
Poetic and memorable - I loved Fell with a passion. The ghostly narration really appealed to me and her impressionistic style really got into my head. I love a book where I feel like I can 'hear' the characters aloud in my head and Fell managed this amazingly successfully. The house itself comes alive in a far from cliched way and the fragmented patchwork style really allowed me to fill in the gaps in my own head and recreate the characters in living colour. My favourite was Annette and I've thought about her a lot since finishing the novel. Evocative, shimmering and highly individual - I loved Fell and I'm so glad I had the chance to read it.
Jenn Ashworth's is incredibly adept at writing domestic dramas with a Northern slant, and 'Fell' may be her best book yet. It's a beautifully written story about love and loss, all set in the wild landscape of the Lancashire coast. It's part ghost story, part cautionary tale of trusting in false charlatans.
We never find out quite enough about each of the characters - why did Annette leave her home and rarely return? Who is the mysterious Timothy Richardson? Why are the gay couple who take Annette in so reluctant to allow their teenage son to go on a football trip to France? - but Ashworth has enough faith in her readers imaginations to fill in the gaps. Grange-over-Sands and Morecambe play just as large as role as any human characters, and I've yet to find more evocative descriptions of this wild and unforgiving bit of coastline (I particularly loved the description of the 'sand pilot,' who is royally appointed to lead unsuspecting travellers across the treacherous sands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen's_Guide_to_the_Sands) .
'Fell' is a novel about the power of grief and the importance of healing. Like Netty and Jack, it lingers long in the memory after the final page is read.