Deep in the heart of the moors and hills of the northern Peak District lies a community surrounded by reservoirs and one New Year a young girl goes missing. This shoots the village to headline news and despite all the best efforts of the locals the girl is not found. However life must go on and the effects of these events impact all around to a greater or lesser extent. Over the next ten or so years the book follows the local characters and the wider life in the area.

This is an incredibly unusual book in that there is little plot and the narrative takes place in a series of long paragraphs which almost list a series of events happening to people and also to nature, some are mundane, some challenging, some barely drawn. It takes a while to get into the book, I was expecting some form of twist or 'plot device' but there isn't one, it's just a description of life in a village after one serious event takes place. Once one realises this there is a wonderful rhythm to the writing and a lovely way of interspersing observations about nature with profound events in the life of the villagers.

Rebecca Shaw, on a New Year holiday with her parents, goes out walking on the moors one day, and disappears. The locals gather to help the police search the area, and at first the talk is of a twisted ankle, or the girl deliberately staying out, trying to frighten her parents, and expectations are high that she'll soon be found. But there are so many things that could have happened - she could have fallen into a quarry, be trapped down an abandoned mine, sucked into one of the bogs on the moor, or even hitched a lift to the nearest city, - and as the days, weeks, months pass, finding her seems unlikely. Despite their initial shock and concern, the villagers soon find that life continues, at first slowly but speeding up with the passing of the years - Spring comes with lambs and fox cubs, wild flowers blossom in the hedgerows, vegetables sprout up at the allotments; babies are born, children grow, relationships develop or falter, the elderly die, newcomers arrive, and ultimately people begin to forget about a missing girl.

I usually try to avoid spoilers when writing reviews but I don't think that's possible here because a lot of my thoughts revolve around what the book IS, and what it ISN'T.

Although the book opens with Rebecca's disappearance, it ISN'T a crime thriller, with clues to unearth, false leads to pursue, but ultimately leading to a resolution. Over the years, various times of Rebecca's clothing are found but no real evidence of what happened or clue to her whereabouts discovered. Instead the focus is on the impact to the people living in this quiet out-of-the-way village - something devastating has happened on their doorstep, but to an outsider that most of them had never met. Naturally they're shocked, but for how long can they be expected to grieve and put their lives on hold?

Personally I found a lot of similarities with McGregor's first novel, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things. In much the same way, it encourages the reader to see and remark upon the small happenings that occur from day to day around us but which are so often missed in the rush of life; to stop for a while and watch a butterfly, listen to birdsong, or notice our children growing from infants to teenagers. It's a mesmerising, beautifully written book charting the emotional and physical changes within a small tightly-knit community over thirteen years, but this time I was left wanting something more. As the years pass, snippets of information come to light about Rebecca's disappearance, various items of her clothing are found on the moors, but no explanation of her disappearance is forthcoming. This may, in all honesty, be truer to life than a crime novel which neatly closes all leads off by the final page, and reaches some nature of resolution, even if not a happy one, but, even so, I was left unsatisfied. Somewhere I read that the mark of a literary novel is that it ends without resolution - this is certainly literary, not crime, fiction.

I remember being blown away by Jon McGregor's debut novel If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things a few years ago and have gone on to read all his books since then.   I know that his understated, lyrical style isn't everyone's cup of tea but I love it.

Reservoir 13 tells the story of a group of people who live in a small village in northern England over a period of just over 10 years.  At the start of the book a 13 year old girl called Becky goes missing while she and her parents are staying at a holiday cottage in the area, and McGregor goes on to observe the locals' reactions to the event and its aftermath, as life inevitably returns to something like normal for everyone but the girl's parents who are often seen wandering forlornly around the village.

The characters and their everyday lives are beautifully described (I particularly enjoyed reading about Richard and Cathy's poignant mid-life relationship) and nature also has a large role to play in the storyline with the passing years since Becky's disappearance marked with the birth of animals and migration of birds. 

The mystery of Becky's disappearance isn't tied up neatly at the end, although a few seeds are planted. The writing has an almost 'stream of consciousness' style as McGregor tells several stories on the same page (sometimes in the same paragraph) and I loved the hypnotically beautiful style and the depiction of everyday life continuing in the face of tragedy. A very absorbing and poignant read.

Not what I expected at all. It just did not hit the spot for me. I like a good thriller with a resolution at the end which this book did not have. It was just the same chapter after chapter with no outcome. Not for me I am afraid.

Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor is a beautiful piece of storytelling. A young girl goes missing whilst on holiday with her parents in a remote rural area. Her disappearance touches the heart of the community and though the years pass and there is no trace of her, she is not forgotten. Babies are born, old people die, teenagers grow up and go to university, people fall in love, others divorce. The seasons change and people age but the tragedy of the girl's disappearance still lingers. It is a novel that is lyrical and haunting. Jon McGregor is the master of literary fiction.

I think my rating of this book requires an explanation. I always finish the books I start, but could not with this one. There is nothing wrong with the book, Its just not for me. It felt like "smoothie" to me, you take ingredients and blend it all together, than ask someone to identify the ingredients used. I don't have enough patience for it :)

I took a while to get into this book because Jon McGregor's writing is unique but once I got used to it I found it captivating. Reservoir 13 isn't a thriller though it begins with a missing child. It's about the community in the village where she was staying when she disappeared. It's about time and the seasons and how things change in everybody's lives.

Thanks to Netgalley for my copy.

This is a beautifully written book with lots of detail and descriptions of life in a small country village. The seasons come and go, relationships begin and end and village life carries on throughout. At the centre of the book is a missing girl. The book spans 20 years noting all the changes that occur and how the girl affects their lives.
The end is a disapointment and I felt cheated but I still enjoyed the book.

Not my usual choice of novel, it was ok but I think I will stick with my thriller type books in future

Everything happens yet nothing happens!

This is my first encounter with this author so I was totally new to his way of writing. The books begins with the disappearance, in the early 2000s, of a missing girl, Rebecca Shaw. She has been on holiday with her parents to celebrate the New Year.

The small village unites in an effort to find her but as the days and months and even years go by the mystery is not solved. Instead the writer then goes on to describe how this incident affects the residents of the village, their everyday lives, relationships, grief and all the mundane events that make up a life in a small village.

The characters are numerous and the book switches from one to another without really giving any full idea of who they are or what makes them who they are. Life goes on with all its variations and as the years go by the original missing girl is just something that once happened. The characters blend into the natural landscape and as the seasons pass so do events and people. The actual writing is very beautiful and descriptive and draws you into the village and its people.

However, in the end nothing really happens. The author does not use paragraphs or conversation. He seems more interested in description and rhythm and to begin with this intrigued me. After a while though I found it very difficult to read as nothing progresses and none of the characters seems to have any depth. Events happen, are commented on and then we move on to the next person.

This style of writing obviously appeals to a lot of readers but I found it almost overbearing after a while. I am glad I read this book but will not be looking at his earlier novels as this style is not for me.

Dexter

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review

Tedious beyond belief. A whole book of disjointed sentences, one chapter would have been sufficient to cover it all. However, having said that I thought the descriptions of the countryside were rather nice, in the beginning. No story, no plot, no ending just a lot of countryside meandering.

I really tried with this book. I kept thinking I would get used to the unusual prose but I just couldn't it felt like an endless onslaught of information. I can see why others would like this but I just couldn't persevere with it.

Every now and then a book comes along that is written in a style unlike any other. This is one of those books. Reservoir 13 is intimate, conversational, gossipy, nosy, and reads at times like a soap opera, at times like a country music song with a story to tell. Neither of those last two descriptions accurately convey its brilliance though. While seemingly detached, the style gets right under the skin. Sometimes it seems too much and one wishes for a break into direct speech or action, but it goes relentlessly on, poking its nose into other people's business.

A young teenager goes missing in the hills around Reservoir 13. The girl was last seen out walking with her parents but became separated from them. Naturally, the parents are suspected but there are others in the village with secrets to keep and information to hide. The girl's friends have not revealed all they could have done about the relationships between them. There are those in the village who have dark interests in young persons. There are philanderers and secret lovers and those who never manage to connect. There are marriages, divorces and violence. There are births and deaths and illnesses - indeed, all life is here. And underlying it all is the girl who disappeared.

Weeks, months and ultimately years go by and the girl is still missing. This is the story of how such an event impacts on a community, how they deal with it, respond to it and incorporate it into their reality.

Truly unique and a fascinating read.

Started well with evocative descriptions of landscape, and sketches of all the people affected by the disappearance of a missing child. But I was waiting for the focus to settle on the main story. When I realised that it was going to continue as a story of the whole village through the next few months, without a main protagonist, there wasn't enough to hold my interest. Not for me I'm afraid.

A teenage girl on holiday goes missing in the hills in the middle of winter. Despite a large search party, including the villagers, she cannot be found. Time passes as the seasons come and go. Life in the village goes on.
Reservoir 13 is straight-forward storytelling with uncluttered prose, but don't let the simplicity of the words fool you, because they've been very cleverly chosen. This no-frills type of language is the beauty of the way this novel has been written. You can choose to savour the brilliant construction of the narrative, or simply let the story wash over you.
It is hard to believe that a book following the story of a village over several years can hold a reader’s interest, but it does.
The world of the villagers shifts and transforms with the changing seasons of the rugged countryside around it (the location of which resonates strongly with anyone familiar with the Peak District). There is a distance in the way the villagers’ lives are related, but at the same time each loop of a narrative about a particular person keeps reeling you in tighter until you become emotionally involved.
The village and its surroundings are also characters in the story, and relating the ebb and flow of the seasons to the village and those in it become hypnotic.
At the back of your mind is always what has happened to the missing girl. But you become far more fascinated by the world you can see and experience through Jon McGregor’s skillful storytelling.

Reservoir 13 opens with a teenage girl going missing in the hills close to a small English village. This is, however., not a crime novel. The girl's disappearance is the background to a vivid description of the village and the life within it - both human, and otherwise. The disappearance impacts on the village in different ways, both major and subtle, and the natural year turns and turns again. Small clues appear as time goes on, but, although the missing girl is always in our consciousness, other people and relationships come to the fore as time passes. Jon McGregor's writing is simple and beautiful and he writes as well about nature as he does about the small things that can form or break a relationship between people.

A thirteen-year look at the life of the residents of a Peak District village, with the whereabouts of the missing girl haunting everybody. Short, precise sentences gallop through the months of each year, yet create an impressive picture of the area and its folk, their lives and loves.
A very enjoyable read

This book is well written but it felt as if the story did not go anywhere. I expected there to be a lot more in the book about finding Becky and a lot less about the repetition of village life.

"The missing girl's name was Rebecca Shaw. When last seen she'd been wearing a white hooded top."

This was such an unexpected but interesting little book. That sounds really patronising but I don't mean it to. With a missing girl story line I thought the plot line of Reservoir 13 would focus on the police investigation, but instead author Jon McGregor looks at how this event effects the community of the village she went missing in. It's not really like anything I've read before. It's about ordinary people and everyday life, yet it celebrates the beauty of the mundane.

As I said before, Reservoir 13 is not really a crime novel; if you're expecting a thorough mystery with a satisfying ending then this is not for you. To be honest, that was what I was expecting and when I first realised this was not what Reservoir 13 was, I couldn't get on with it, especially as the prose moves so fast. But once I settled in I really loved it.

I've never read any other Jon McGregor before so I don't know if this is how he usually writes, but his prose was fast and almost skips from character to character, never staying on one story-line for too long. At first this was quite disorientating, however, once I got used to the pace I actually enjoyed it. You'd think he wouldn't be able to impart knowledge or build a character when writing with such fast prose, but he is brilliant at making a character come to life with only the smallest detail of their thought process or their actions.

McGregor also gradually reveals secrets and revelations about the characters. It's very well managed and, as a writer myself, I marveled at his skill.

The pace of writing actually reflects the village life that this book is set around. I grew up in a village and I really recognised the general overview of village life; everyone knowing everyone else, community life focused around seasonal events (like harvest festival) and the village squabbles and politics, but then you scratch the surface and there are more secrets and depth.

The characters in Reservoir 13 are all interesting. At first some seem like typical village characters; the patriarch farmer, the meddling middle-aged woman and the bored teenagers. But McGregor fleshes them out and gradually reveals more about them and they become unique people that you're invested in.
McGregor dips in and out of their lives and shows how they grow and change over the thirteen years, touching on major life events as well as the everyday routines. It's sort of dramatic yet peaceful at the same time, he really captures how life carries on in a small community.

The writing, while fast, is beautiful and it is often focused around nature, the way country life is.

"The summer had been low with cloud but in September the skies cleared and the days were berry-bright and the mud hardened into ridges in the lanes."

I sped through this book and actually had to ration myself as I didn't want to finish it too fast. I suspect this speedy writing style won't be for everyone though. There are so many characters and the skimming prose can be a bit confusing at times.

Sometimes I felt McGregor rushed over what I thought were quite big plot points. Also, the ending left me with a lot more questions, so if you like everything to be tied up neatly Reservoir 13 may frustrate you.

However, give it a go, it's something a bit different and I really loved it.

My Rating: 4/5

I received a digital copy of Reservoir 13 via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to the author and publisher.