The Green Hill

by Sophie Pierce

In 2017, Sophie Pierce’s life changed forever when her twenty-year-old son Felix died suddenly and unexpectedly. Thrown into an unimaginable new reality, she had to find a way to survive. By writing letters to Felix – composed during walks and swims taken close to his burial place by the River Dart – Sophie gradually learned how to live in the landscape of sudden loss, navigating the weather and tides of grief.  The Green Hill collects these letters alongside Sophie’s account of the years following Felix’s death, into which she weaves poignant memories of his life. What results is a deeply moving, beautifully captured record of how – amid the rivers and rocks of Dartmoor, and in the sea off the South Devon coast – Sophie was able to hold on to and nurture her bond with Felix, both in her mind and through a physical engagement with the actively mourning, rather than grieving.  This book is a celebration of the natural world and the role it plays in our lives and relationships, as well as an examination of how beauty and the passing seasons can help us contend with our own mortality. Above all, The Green Hill is one woman’s story of navigating through trauma and loss, and towards a fragile, complicated kind of joy.

324 pages, Hardcover

Published October 3, 2023

Reviews

[Nicola · Rating 4 out of 5]

They say you should never judge a book by its cover, but I was instantly drawn to the beautiful cover when I saw the book in the window of a little independent book shop in Dorset.
My 27 year old son was undergoing treatment for cancer and because of the subject matter of the book I kept it but couldn't read it until after my so got the all clear last December.
You feel that you are living the life of the author as she deals with the unexpected death of her son.
But the book is so much more than a sad biography of this terrible incident in her life.I am familiar with the beautiful countryside around South Devon, and the author weaves vivid scenes of parts of the countryside and how she includes it and her wild swimming into her life during this time.
Sometimes a book like The Green Hill is good to read if you are in the right frame of mind to do so.

[bethany ❊ · Rating 5 out of 5]

truly beautiful and inspiring read !