Elmet

Some men would rather destroy something than lose it to someone else. Those men are amongst the most dangerous of men. This novel captures the observation of one such man, and the destruction he is willing to wrought, quite well.

Well...that ending was a bit much. A bit over the top if you ask me. I think (?) I liked it up to that point, but perhaps need some time to mull it over...

I'm more disappointed with that ending the more I think about it. There was so much promise here, so much I loved; the brooding and lyrical prose, the atmospheric rural Yorkshire setting, the ominous tone, and the tight family unit living beyond the law. I loved the “timeless” feel to the story, as if it's a modern folktale, especially with the references to the old Kingdom of Elmet.

The 3 main characters in this family were all well drawn, but sadly I think all of the secondary characters were lacking. Mr Price, above all, was terribly two dimensional, like a villain from a Bond movie. I needed to know more about the children's mother (and their grandmother, for that matter) and was really surprised that strand of the story was left unexplained by the novel's end. Vivien was...odd; I couldn't make sense of her character or her apathy. The rest, who had been so supporting of the family, turned against them so suddenly that it all felt too convenient for the dark ending we knew was inevitably coming...

A lot of promise that I wish had come together better at the end.

I genuinely did not, based on the jacket blurb, expect to enjoy this book. What a fantastic surprise.

For me, this novel read like the first season of an amazing new HBO series - dark, with a sense of forboding because you know something bad is going to happen, but you just don't know quite when. A series of well-drawn characters makes you invest early and deeply in the outcome of the tale. And when the bomb explodes, you feel the shockwaves down to your very bones.

I did not want to put this one down. I am absolutely looking forward to this author's next work. Definitely recommended.