Eden's Shore

by Oisín Fagan

In the late 18th century, Angel Kelly sets sail from Liverpool aboard the Atlas, with the intention of setting up a Utopian commune in Brazil. Before he arrives, there is a mutiny on the ship, and he and the crew are left stranded upon the coast of an unnamed Spanish colony in Latin America. Angel is rescued by a local Amerindian child named Esa, and brought to her settlement where all the crew are cared for, but later the crew conspire with a local colonist to displace their Amerindian hosts so as to make way for a mine.

Eight years later, Esa is looking for revenge, using the revolutionary fervour of the times to stage an uprising against the Spanish colonists, but she ends up finding herself trapped in a deadly game of espionage and proxy war between the European empires.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Irish Literature, Novels

342 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 10, 2025

Reviews

[Cathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the first part of the book describing Angel's voyage was really good. Rather violent but compelling at the same time. Once he arrived in Brazil it all became rather confusing with the focus moving to other characters some of whom I'd assumed were dead. Reading the book was like being in a kind of fever dream. I admired the imagination and the descriptive language (which is why it gets three stars not two) but by the end of the book I was completely confused.

[Paul Dembina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really looking forward to this after thoroughly enjoying his debut novel Nobber but was unfortunately disappointed.

It starts off promisingly enough, a philandering student in (18th century) London decides to use what remains of an inheritance to join a ship sailing to America so he can set himself up in Brazil. The nature of the ship he traveling on becomes clear and after that events become rather more confusing, with a proliferation of new characters.

By the end I was rather unsure of quite what was going on. The journey was interesting even so.

[Georgina Reads_Eats_Explores · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oisín Fagan’s Eden’s Shore is a bold and ferociously imaginative novel that plunges the reader into the turbulence of the late eighteenth century—a time when empires expanded, revolutions brewed, and the line between idealism and delusion was perilously thin.

At the centre of this sweeping historical epic stands Angel Kelly, an Irishman driven by utopian dreams, who sets sail from Liverpool with grand notions of founding a commune in Brazil. It’s a noble ambition, but one that’s quickly undone by a mutiny aboard the Atlas, leaving him marooned in an unnamed Spanish colony on the edge of the known world.

What follows is a sprawling, intricately layered narrative that explores the collapse of ideals in the face of realpolitik, violence, and the ever-churning machinery of colonial power. Fagan populates his pages with an extraordinary array of characters—revolutionaries and pirates, capitalists and aristocrats, enslaved people, spies, and soldiers—each sketched with vivid intensity. This is not a world of moral binaries but one riddled with compromise, betrayal, and the desperate search for agency in the shadow of empire.


The novel’s scope is staggering, but what’s most impressive is Fagan’s control of tone and texture. His prose is dense, lyrical, and dreamlike yet unflinchingly visceral. The writing is drenched in dark wit with a philosophical propensity and a deep awareness of colonial entanglements that lends the novel both urgency and depth.

Edens Shore is messy, magnificent, and mad. It is historical fiction, but like nothing you've read before. It demands attention and rewards it generously. With this work, Fagan establishes himself not only as a writer of great ambition but as a singular voice capable of reimagining history through a lens that is as unflinching as it is humane.

Many thanks to the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance copy via NetGalley. As always, this is an honest review.

[Gayle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Colonial acid novel

[Andy Weston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fagan’s debut novel, Nobber, indicated he was a young writer to keep an eye on, and his follow-up confirms that.

This time, the Irishman takes his readers on an adventure on the high-seas in the late eighteenth century. The protagonist, is an educated but naïve young Irishman who spends all he owns on a piece of land in Brazil, dreaming of building a city there away from the violence, poverty and hunger of life in Ireland. However, he meets with all sorts of bloody mayhem, in a page-turning tale of deception, conflict and strife.

This is a period of history of great upheaval, and lends itself well to Fagan’s style of writing. It’s a step up from Nobber in that there is more action, but over ambitious in the amount of threads that he keeps going. Addressing the slave trade, the genocide of the native population, the ruthless exploitation by capitalists from the north, and bloody revolution, all drenched in poverty, squalor and mindless violence, there’s enough going on. That he resorts to occasional fever dream, serves little purpose other than to baffle and add length to an already high page count.

Overall though, it’s another success, and interesting to see which period of history Fagan will take us to next.

[Doug · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fagan's debut novel, Nobber I gave 4.5 stars to, taking off half a star for a few minor quibbles - namely the lack of a strong throughline (I noted it seemed more like interconnected short stories than a novel) and a tendency to have a surfeit of characters left offstage for far too long and then reintroducing them at a much later date - when I, for one, have virtually forgotten who they are.

These two faults are massively even MORE of an issue with this, which mightily suffers from 'second novel curse'. The purported protagonist, one Angel Kelly, takes center stage in the first 60 pages, then literally disappears for 200 pages. I often confused characters - and it didn't help that two semi-major ones are named Marianne and Mariam - both inexplicably males.

Worse, even though there is SOME gorgeous prose again, more often there are long stretches of meaningless gobbledygook, the grotesquery is intensified, and I am not even sure what the author is trying to say here - colonial capitalism is bad? ... duh! Seems many people abandoned this mess, and I was tempted to do so also at several points. Disappointing end to 2025.

[ceil stoll · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF @ 65%

I received an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for a review. Thank you so much!

I really liked the concept of this book. I liked the description, and the cover. I was just really hoping for more cohesion overall, though. The different plot lines were a lot to keep track of, and I had a hard time telling the characters apart, because there were a LOT of them.

However, the descriptive language was beautiful! It was very visceral, and I audibly gasped or said “ew” out loud at several points. I just wish the same energy had been poured into a more cohesive plot.

I’m sure this book is for somebody, even though it unfortunately wasn’t for me.

[Caitlin Davies · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5*

[Richard Russell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a bit like modern art. You may question whether it makes sense or whether the creator has initiated an 'Emperor's clothes' moment. It's so damned complicated and all over the place. Coincidently I recently slogged my way through Conrad's, Heart of Darkness which is a similarly complex novel on the same topic (different continent). I struggled more with Eden's Shore to be honest. That said it's high quality writing and if you are blessed with the virtue of patience and stick with it, you'll navigate a probable modern classic.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fagan further proves himself as a prose stylist of immense talent. This might get labeled as “historical fiction” but only in so far as, like Pynchon, he seems to be placing his works at junctions of history where everything balances upon a precipice and the future might take any direction, but unlike Pynchon he keeps the zoom claustrophobically tight, inducing a feverish perspective, even as we move between a wide range of pov characters. This results not in a plotless novel, but certainly not a plot-first kind of novel. More than anything, the language carries it.

The prose is appropriately visceral for its topic of colonial violence. A gilding of enlightenment philosophy papers over deep wells of horror, but even so it is not a book without humor, often derived from the idiocy of its characters, or misunderstandings caused by the mixing of the world’s languages in this South American colony. That’s a difficult balancing act, but Fagan has the talent to pull it off.

[Gem]

I DNF’ed this book at 30%. The first part reminded me a bit of a dark Pirates of the Caribbean and had me hooked at the start. But once Angel Kelly reaches the shores of a Spanish colony after the shipwreck, we follow multiple different characters and it became difficult for me to keep up or remain interested.

I put the book down as another character, Chuck Benjamin enters the story - and I went back to read the description of the book to find out it might not be about any of these characters really, but about Esa (who I’m sure we’ve met by this point but I couldn’t remember).

This epic tale will be for someone, and I enjoyed the writing style - but it was just too vast a story for me and so I won’t be finishing.

[Shastri Akella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fagan is a masterful storyteller, and I have read and taught all of his works so far -- from The Hierophants, which won the Penny Dreadful prize, to his hypnotic story collection, Hostages, to his most recent novel, Nobber that is set during the bubonic plague in Ireland and with which Eden's Shore, getting published on April 10, shares the DNA of an epic scope. It covers a wider geography, and is every bit as magical and twisted and, ultimately, humane, as I have come to expect Fagan's work to be.
Highly recommend!

[kari fay · Rating 2 out of 5]

holy shit this book was like a fever dream I did not know what was going on for most of it but I guess that was my fault because I was not locked in at all while reading this… I think it is well written I just hate how there are no chapters just breaks in the page and guess what it may just jump 5 or 10 years into the future idk it never tells you and then it might suddenly become a play and now I’m like what actually happened to angel?? What happened to any of them? anyways

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Difficult to know what to say on this one. I loved the language. Much of it reminded me of Cormac McCarthy - especially redolent of Blood Meridian. But as to the story - I struggled to make head nor tail of it. Multiple characters coming at you from different directions and at different times proved, for me, to be utterly confusing. In the end, I just gave up trying to make any sense of it and just enjoyed the text. A strange but quite enjoyable read.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the 18th century, a young Irish man named Angel decides he will take his inheritance and get rich off land in Brazil. He boards a ship unaware of the type of ship it is & there is a mutiny. He ends up shipwrecked not in Brazil.

I found this quite difficult to follow? People disappear and die and reappear… is it real? The writing has a dreamlike quality which makes it a little harder to figure out.

I don’t typically read a lot of books similar to this (perhaps there aren’t any! I wouldn’t know!) so that could be why I got lost. I am very sure there is a keen audience for this book but I’m just not one of them sadly.

*read via NetGalley

[Garry Nixon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lyrical and nightmarish telling of colonialism somewhere in the tropical Americas, (but definitely NOT Brazil). There’s a lot of drinking, and the horrors of a hangover in the tropical heat are well delineated. Beautiful prose, as if Pynchon and Joyce collaborated, or maybe it’s better than that.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

An impulse buy and an important lesson that pretty cover does not equal good book. enjoyed first half but completely lost track when they got to brazil. too many characters to keep track of, and was confused as to whether they were dead or alive. ploughed through but don't know whether it was worth it.

[Reader · Rating 2 out of 5]

Considering giving up on this book, which will be my first DNF for about two years. The plot is interesting and engaging up until they arrive in Brazil and the main character seems to disappear. What follows are countless characters with random sub plots that are not that interesting nor engaging. Wouldn’t recommend to any of my friends or family but might be for someone out there!

[Maylin]

I gave up on this book about 40% in. the characters were so unpleasant and did such horrible things to each other that I stopped reading for the sake of my mental health. This is no comment on the writing or where the story was going it was just not for me at this time.

[Kevin Barry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful writing - imagery and descriptions of place are top class. Tricky plot to follow but captures complexity and turbulence of the era. Impressive by Fagan and warrants a reread

[Fern · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book but God it was tedious and so confusing.

[Michael Byrne · Rating 4 out of 5]

So mich going on it will need a re read to out it straight in my head.

[Nick Barth · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars are only for the opening act, the rest was forgettable - sorry

[Kate]

It was so good! And also so violent! Then also so confusing!

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really enjoyed Fagan’s Hostages so decided I’d give this a go as well. Whilst enjoyable it’s also an hungover absolute fever dream with some parts that feel rather disjointed.

[Liz]

All over the shop. DNF.

[Trent Goodwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ending the year with unbridled chaos, revolution, and body horror. Book 50, 4.5/5

[John Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

we are in hell

[Nick Garbutt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Fagan. His is a daring, unflinching voice whose writing drips with gore and seethes with violence. The first section of Eden's Shore is compelling. A young adventurer gets passage to Brazil aboard a slave ship. 

But once they reach shore the narrative fragments, becoming increasingly hallucinatory and ultimately incomprehensible. It is disturbing but I was left baffled as to what it all meant despite some wonderfully written passages.