Bleak, but brutally beautiful

I’ve mentioned before that reading can be strangely feast or famine – what seems like months of not being able to find a book which you can really engage with, and then other times when exciting and interesting tomes are piling up. Because our house is bulging at its seams and there’s barely any floor space let alone shelves, I try to buy books to read on Kindle.  It also means that I can read in bed without the light on which would disturb sleeping beauty who’s become somewhat of an early bird whereas I’m definitely a night owl.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned Chasing Fog by Laura Pashby which I thoroughly recommend, a fascinating and interesting and beautifully written book. The day before yesterday I came across ‘The North Shore’ by Tim  Tufnell, which is set on the Norfolk coast – an area we visited so many times as children, and holidayed here each year.

It starts with a boy being left alone in the family cottage, not far from the sea in Norfolk, because his mother has to visit his very sick grandfather in hospital. A storm blows up and although the boy isn’t concerned – he’s used to storms living so close to the coast, but  the description to us the readers is quite awesome and not a little terrifying. He says “It is bleak, but it is brutally beautiful. I love it.’  The following morning the boy goes out and wanders down towards the beach, surveying the debris everywhere, thinking about his grandfather who is so ill and feeling a connection between the ravages of the storm and the life of the old man which might be slipping away. He becomes slightly disoriented in the salt marshes but he finds himself on the pebbly shore… and I won’t reveal what happens next! You won’t expect it, I guarantee!

You don’t pass through the North Shore on the way to anywhere else: it is the end of the road. The village was like many along that wild coast; inhabited by those who had always lived there, and always would. The residents know nature’s tempestuous ways. They batten down the hatches when the storms rip through, and they clear the debris together in the aftermath. But the morning after one particularly ferocious storm, something is washed up on the beach that has never appeared before. Something that opens the question of what nature, and the North Shore, are truly capable of.

It’s not written in a conventional way, although you’ll not realise that while you’re reading ‘I’, the first part. When you get to ‘II’, you may at first wonder what has happened  – but read on, it will become clear! It’s a gripping read, for sure, but what I am most enjoying is the sheer quality of the writing – the word lyrical is often used to describe a novel, and in North Shore it is justified. It’s mysterious, unexpected, challenging, beautiful, engaging, and I’m pretty sure when I finish it I will have to start it again because there is so much that’s wondrous, peculiar, and puzzling in a good way. I’m being carried along by the narrative, but there’s so much more that I need to pay attention to!

Here is a link:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B5WVPHTR