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Wivenhoe
Never thought he would miss the mud: the gleaming, slickness of it. The slap and suck at the turning of the tide; its rich, bird-shit stink after a hot day and a couple of pints at the Rose. Or the green-blue-yellow hues that marked the changes in the light, as the days and seasons marched over the village and the river. And now, just snow. Endless snow.
A young man is found brutally murdered in the middle of the snowed-in village of Wivenhoe. Over his body stands another man, axe in hand. The gathered villagers must deal with the consequences of an act that no-one tried to stop.
WIVENHOE is a haunting novel set in an alternate present, in a world that is slowly waking up to the fact that it is living through an environmental disaster. Taking place over twenty-four hours and told through the voices of a mother and her adult son, we see how one small community reacts to social breakdown and isolation.
Samuel Fisher imagines a world, not unlike our own, struck down and on the edge of survival. Tense, poignant, and set against a dramatic landscape, WIVENHOE asks the question: if society as we know it is lost, what would we strive to save? At what point will we admit complicity in our own destruction?
A young man is found brutally murdered in the middle of the snowed-in village of Wivenhoe. Over his body stands another man, axe in hand. The gathered villagers must deal with the consequences of an act that no-one tried to stop.
WIVENHOE is a haunting novel set in an alternate present, in a world that is slowly waking up to the fact that it is living through an environmental disaster. Taking place over twenty-four hours and told through the voices of a mother and her adult son, we see how one small community reacts to social breakdown and isolation.
Samuel Fisher imagines a world, not unlike our own, struck down and on the edge of survival. Tense, poignant, and set against a dramatic landscape, WIVENHOE asks the question: if society as we know it is lost, what would we strive to save? At what point will we admit complicity in our own destruction?
160 pages, Hardcover
Published February 3, 2022
13 people are currently reading
451 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews
February 10, 2022
I can't say I am 100% sure about this novel.
Set in an Essex village, in an England where the snow hasn't stopped and communities are isolated and falling apart, this story follows the immediate aftermath of traumatic events that are revealed over the course of the story. I didn't feel particularly invested in the characters, nor did I find the situation compelling enough to feel the unease and tension that I think the author was aiming for.
This is a short novel, and I really feel it.could have done with being longer. I would have liked there to be more space for the author to expand upon the world he had created. A slightly missed opportunity to my mind.
Set in an Essex village, in an England where the snow hasn't stopped and communities are isolated and falling apart, this story follows the immediate aftermath of traumatic events that are revealed over the course of the story. I didn't feel particularly invested in the characters, nor did I find the situation compelling enough to feel the unease and tension that I think the author was aiming for.
This is a short novel, and I really feel it.could have done with being longer. I would have liked there to be more space for the author to expand upon the world he had created. A slightly missed opportunity to my mind.
June 4, 2024
my second library book find wrt novels set in Essex - from a very similar area to the other ('Midnight is a Lonely Place' by Barbara Erskine), tho rather more precisely/exactly located in the village of Wivenhoe, across the Colne from where I was wandering.
the novel is a post apocalyptic story of sorts, tho also a potential near future story, wrt environmental, political and national/social collapse.
the UK as an island on its own is interesting to explore in extremity (like with Daphne du Maurier's post-Brexit-like 'Rule Britannia') - the possibility that the island might experience something so very localised and isolated (from the rest of the world). the government have relocated to mainland Europe, and the populace/rest of us have either gradually headed to 'the exit point' to seek their own refuge on the continent, or been left to mostly fend for themselves... a few choosing to stay in place, and some in their home village of Wivenhoe.
the snow started just over a year ago... and didn't stop
🌨❄🌨 ❄🌨❄
the story is alternately told by the dual narratives of Joe and Helen, a son and his mother, a mother and her son.
a point in time, an incident, starts the novel, then the rest of the story unfurls from there in a variety of directions, moving amongst characters, and between the past, present and potential future.
🌨❄🌨 ❄🌨❄
I thought the apocalyptic aspect of the story was nicely done, how the start of the snow didn't mean anything at the time...
and that it paints a nicely delicate portrait of decline, and in many ways - infrastructure, mood, health...
there's a inescapable focus on family and village relationships... the intricacies of neighbours, intimacies of family...
I thought Helen's undiagnosed declining health was really well drawn - nebulous yet definite, unidentified but relateable to eg MS, cancer - and I liked the descriptions of how she and others behave in relation to it.
I found interesting Joe's loss of interest in anything happening outside of the village, the slow turning in... contrasted with others who were still more engaged with news, what's going on outside them. here, while some are interested in a future, and in at least continuing in place, maintaining, if not building, something, there's also a sense of abandonment, drawing in, giving up, people and place grinding to a slow, ice-bound halt.
then the later turnaround, with his excitement at his girlfriends probable pregnancy, and having something to look/live forward to 🙂
🌨❄🌨 ❄🌨❄
I found it interesting how part of the novel used the death of Princess Diana as a date ("dyou remember when...")(there was alot in the novel about memory, the past and/in the present). I think it's one of the first novels I've read that uses it like that. there's other UK and US dates and events used in the novel too, but that one links interestingly to a date personally significant to one of the characters, and paralleling a point in my own life.
🌨❄🌨 🐻❄ ❄🌨❄
and polar bears in Essex! 🐻❄😃😆😉🐻❄ I liked their occasional but regular recurrence thru the story, including as a point of humour, popular myth, rumour, incongruity... 😃😁
🌨❄🌨 🐻❄ ❄🌨❄
the novel felt quite authentically Essex somehow... in a way that might be hard to define/describe - some of the turns of phrase, interactions, backdrop details... and assisted by the accents of the readers 🙂 tho I guess it could equally fit other Southern England and London local experiences. but there's a definite sense of class communicated by small details, that fits with Essex, and which I enjoyed.
🌨❄🌨 ❄🌨❄
it seems I found the characters more relateable than some other reviewers.... I liked the details and piece-by-piece character studies, the observations of relationships... and the relative lack of drama/anything really happening in the novel (despite the dramatic incident at the start).
tho I noticed feeling a tension towards the end, as Joe, Helen, and family moved to leave - a concern that something/someone would intervene - I don't know if this was achieved alone by my enjoying the characters enough to feel invested, and/or through the narrative.
🌨❄🌨 ❄🌨❄
I enjoyed the authors use of language throughout, and his writing 🙂 I liked the way the novel was structured, explored, and what pictures the words drew 🙂
and I appreciated some gentle musings on masculinity, and different male behaviours... the open thoughts and feelings of the different male characters...
in many ways the novel is also a musing on gendered violence, male violence, the alternatives (to current socialised norms), irrespective of time and setting... and how a community responds to a rape.
🌨❄🌨 ❄🌨❄
I found myself mildly disappointed when I looked that this was the most recent of the authors two novels, and hope that he writes, and I get to read, more 🙂
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 4.5 even ? 🙂
accessed as a library audiobook, well read by Fran Burgoyne and Luke Francis 🙂 I initially preferred one reader over the other, tho warmed to both, and both were good 🙂
the novel is a post apocalyptic story of sorts, tho also a potential near future story, wrt environmental, political and national/social collapse.
the UK as an island on its own is interesting to explore in extremity (like with Daphne du Maurier's post-Brexit-like 'Rule Britannia') - the possibility that the island might experience something so very localised and isolated (from the rest of the world). the government have relocated to mainland Europe, and the populace/rest of us have either gradually headed to 'the exit point' to seek their own refuge on the continent, or been left to mostly fend for themselves... a few choosing to stay in place, and some in their home village of Wivenhoe.
the snow started just over a year ago... and didn't stop
🌨❄🌨 ❄🌨❄
the story is alternately told by the dual narratives of Joe and Helen, a son and his mother, a mother and her son.
a point in time, an incident, starts the novel, then the rest of the story unfurls from there in a variety of directions, moving amongst characters, and between the past, present and potential future.
🌨❄🌨 ❄🌨❄
I thought the apocalyptic aspect of the story was nicely done, how the start of the snow didn't mean anything at the time...
and that it paints a nicely delicate portrait of decline, and in many ways - infrastructure, mood, health...
there's a inescapable focus on family and village relationships... the intricacies of neighbours, intimacies of family...
I thought Helen's undiagnosed declining health was really well drawn - nebulous yet definite, unidentified but relateable to eg MS, cancer - and I liked the descriptions of how she and others behave in relation to it.
I found interesting Joe's loss of interest in anything happening outside of the village, the slow turning in... contrasted with others who were still more engaged with news, what's going on outside them. here, while some are interested in a future, and in at least continuing in place, maintaining, if not building, something, there's also a sense of abandonment, drawing in, giving up, people and place grinding to a slow, ice-bound halt.
then the later turnaround, with his excitement at his girlfriends probable pregnancy, and having something to look/live forward to 🙂
🌨❄🌨 ❄🌨❄
I found it interesting how part of the novel used the death of Princess Diana as a date ("dyou remember when...")(there was alot in the novel about memory, the past and/in the present). I think it's one of the first novels I've read that uses it like that. there's other UK and US dates and events used in the novel too, but that one links interestingly to a date personally significant to one of the characters, and paralleling a point in my own life.
🌨❄🌨 🐻❄ ❄🌨❄
and polar bears in Essex! 🐻❄😃😆😉🐻❄ I liked their occasional but regular recurrence thru the story, including as a point of humour, popular myth, rumour, incongruity... 😃😁
🌨❄🌨 🐻❄ ❄🌨❄
the novel felt quite authentically Essex somehow... in a way that might be hard to define/describe - some of the turns of phrase, interactions, backdrop details... and assisted by the accents of the readers 🙂 tho I guess it could equally fit other Southern England and London local experiences. but there's a definite sense of class communicated by small details, that fits with Essex, and which I enjoyed.
🌨❄🌨 ❄🌨❄
it seems I found the characters more relateable than some other reviewers.... I liked the details and piece-by-piece character studies, the observations of relationships... and the relative lack of drama/anything really happening in the novel (despite the dramatic incident at the start).
tho I noticed feeling a tension towards the end, as Joe, Helen, and family moved to leave - a concern that something/someone would intervene - I don't know if this was achieved alone by my enjoying the characters enough to feel invested, and/or through the narrative.
🌨❄🌨 ❄🌨❄
I enjoyed the authors use of language throughout, and his writing 🙂 I liked the way the novel was structured, explored, and what pictures the words drew 🙂
and I appreciated some gentle musings on masculinity, and different male behaviours... the open thoughts and feelings of the different male characters...
in many ways the novel is also a musing on gendered violence, male violence, the alternatives (to current socialised norms), irrespective of time and setting... and how a community responds to a rape.
🌨❄🌨 ❄🌨❄
I found myself mildly disappointed when I looked that this was the most recent of the authors two novels, and hope that he writes, and I get to read, more 🙂
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 4.5 even ? 🙂
accessed as a library audiobook, well read by Fran Burgoyne and Luke Francis 🙂 I initially preferred one reader over the other, tho warmed to both, and both were good 🙂
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 5, 2022
Tough one this. Undoubtedly well written, and an interesting and enticing setup, but like the snow-filled setting, I struggled to warm to the characters and was left cold. While the plot was dramatic, the telling wasn't. Lots to like, but more like a 3.5*.
February 15, 2022
Wasn't too sure about what was going on to start with but it grabbed my attention and it felt that it ended too soon.
This novella is set in a dystopian universe, somewhere in Essex, where it has been snowing for a very long time. We have a murderer and a dead body so you won't find a guessing game or who done it murder mystery book. As soon as you find out more about the characters and their life, you start to get invested. It's beautifully written and it just makes you ponder about this parralel universe where all is still but life needs to go on.
This novella is set in a dystopian universe, somewhere in Essex, where it has been snowing for a very long time. We have a murderer and a dead body so you won't find a guessing game or who done it murder mystery book. As soon as you find out more about the characters and their life, you start to get invested. It's beautifully written and it just makes you ponder about this parralel universe where all is still but life needs to go on.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 3, 2022
Really loved this book. It’s compact and direct. The author doesn’t waste time on explication but leaves the reader to pick up the threads of what’s gone before just through great writing. A former Mersea girl sees this book on the ‘What’s New’ shelf at Auckland Central Library literally on the other side of the world – what are the odds? This book reminded me of a couple of other great reads (The Last Good Man, The Second Sleep).
February 6, 2022
Lacked action but the characters had depth, I wanted to read more about their journey.
February 16, 2022
I longed to connect with the book being an admirer of Wivenhoe but instead I found myself just surviving the characters. With each page I implored the author to offer up some breathtaking descriptions of the marsh, the river the history of the town but to no avail. Being able to make a connection with Helen, was my only reflective moments in the book, but that wasn’t even that powerful considering I’m a middle age women who is a little obsessed with her past, present and future and the limits it holds. The almost dystopian, and readily imaginable affects of climate change had the the potential to present the reader with a horrifying and chilling alternative future if we carry on the way us humans do but instead it felt un-nurtured and unreal. It could have being amazing.
On a final note… what happened with the polar bear??? I wanted more of the consequences of that please!!!
On a final note… what happened with the polar bear??? I wanted more of the consequences of that please!!!
January 12, 2024
I think Im either too dumb for this story or it is way too vague. I absolutely loved the premise, but it was dissapointing in execution. I didnt bond with the characters and didnt know who I was rooting for. There were too many plots for a story of 150 pages but not enough focus on the main plot, the reason I bought the book. I didnt understand the world and the ending was too abrupt for me. It is a quick read so If you have time to spare and you’re a better reader than I am, I would still recommend. Maybe you can get something from it that I couldn’t.
May 15, 2022
Intense "alternative present" novella that explores the classic question of dystopian fiction: how we would behave in the face of catastrophic change.
August 24, 2023
Was really excited to read it but I didn’t really enjoy it. I know there’s only so much depth you can give to characters and settings in such a short book but I really felt they lacked anything that helped you to connect to them. I didn’t really care about any of the characters and the murder was lacking in action and drama and tension that was described in the description. It felt very brief over and done with and giving more time to the premise of the whole story would have definitely made it more enticing to read. Was just very underwhelmed
February 11, 2023
I didn't write a review when I finished reading this book, but seeing how low it is rated I felt I had to add my opinion
This book is outstanding in sense of place and atmosphere , concise but totally complete and satisfying.
As someone who has slogged through so many overblown, wordy, and under edited books in my lifetime, this was a refreshing delight.
One that will stay on my shelf for a re read in times to come.
This book is outstanding in sense of place and atmosphere , concise but totally complete and satisfying.
As someone who has slogged through so many overblown, wordy, and under edited books in my lifetime, this was a refreshing delight.
One that will stay on my shelf for a re read in times to come.
January 20, 2025
Nothing really happened, some chatting here, some walking through the snow there, then it ended
February 12, 2024
Don't typically read dystopian books. It's set in an alternative present and how a community reacts to a brutal murder in the village over a short 24 hour period. It covers lots of people's views and touches on some societal areas too.
November 5, 2024
the way he articulates feelings of nostalgia referring to incredibly random and entirely relatable day to day objects and experiences is very very special and reflective of what it is like to be inside my brain but I could never describe
December 29, 2024
Characters and world building felt very underdeveloped and fell flat for me. Could've been really interesting and "Lord of the Flies"-esque but unfortunately it was a bit bland and just seemed like nothing *really* happened?
January 1, 2023
The references made me remember my year living in Wivehoe ❣️
July 15, 2023
I did not finish this novella. I found it difficult to connect with the characters. It’s not the typical genre I would normally choose which has likely impacted my overall decision.
June 11, 2023
I hate the pregnancy amid the apocalypse trope.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 30, 2023
Set in the UK (Essex, to be exact), in the now (2022–23). Snow started falling and didn't stop, and the protagonists are living a cut-off life, in a reality presided over by a bumbling Prime Minister. I think having been written off the back of the COVID-19 pandemic and a country-leadership many think to have been incompetent at best, it serves almost as a 'what-if' tale. The suggestion that whatever happened, happened quickly, is obvious, and is it an environmental warning, a political one, both? That's for the reader to decide. There's an examination of what happens to people in this situation, the desperation, the inability to cope with things without medical help, factions, grudges, love, hope. They're all touched-on to some degree, but never more than necessary to say what needs to be said. It's a believable world, and an exploration of what could happen in it. Not a 'chilling-glimpse' as jacket-blurb might say, but more a 'normal-look'. You definitely get the feeling that at any given time it's a future that isn't far away from us, and it's worrying from that perspective. Well-written, and gentle despite its subject-matter.
January 31, 2022
This short book is unsettling. However, amongst the dystopian background there is love & hope, but I hope to goodness that the Gulf Stream continues to exist to keep our weather moderate!
June 10, 2024
I picked this book up after reading the blurb, and assumed it was going to be about exploring the murder that takes place. It is not. Whilst it does obviously touch on the subject, it is more about exploring what it is like in a post-apocalyptic world whereby a thick layer of snow has fallen.
I think the book is well written but I found the random flash backs, or thoughts, quite jarring. Sometimes I actually found it quite confusing, and not always necessary for the storyline or character development. At the end, I had no particular feelings towards any characters nor the situations that they found themselves in.
I think this could be an easy comfortable read, and if you enjoy these types of books then you’ll probably enjoy it. However it’s not what I thought it would be.
I think the book is well written but I found the random flash backs, or thoughts, quite jarring. Sometimes I actually found it quite confusing, and not always necessary for the storyline or character development. At the end, I had no particular feelings towards any characters nor the situations that they found themselves in.
I think this could be an easy comfortable read, and if you enjoy these types of books then you’ll probably enjoy it. However it’s not what I thought it would be.
May 24, 2025
Not the ending I wanted or the story I thought I was going to read. The premise felt plausible for a while but just didn’t make sense. There was clumsy grammar and the omniscient narrator felt oddly first person at times, which tarnished it for me. I wish the book had been longer, the ending was very abrupt and didn’t offer the satisfaction needed. I’d also say the short reviews that litter the covers of the book are extremely misleading, either that or they didn’t read the book. ‘Elegantly terrifying’ it is not.
September 17, 2022
Incredibly depressing. I see some people are describing it as a dystopia, which makes it sound exciting, but these people aren't caught in a horrible society against which they have to rebel - they're just waiting around for the end, in a world where the climate has shifted and Britain is in the grip of an ice age. Everything is grim and the sense of decline is everywhere, permeating their conversation as much as the weather. I'm quite glad to see the back of it.
January 21, 2023
I really wanted to enjoy this short novel but I just didn’t! I could not invest in the characters and really wanted to be drawn into the story but it didn’t happen. I think it lacked depth of the characters and detail of the world they were living in. Had so much potential to be a good story.
May 6, 2022
Set in a dystopian future in the village of Wivenhoe, everything is blanketed by perpetually falling snow, and everything that is possible is governed by the harsh reality of this frozen landscape. The book starts off with a murder, but this isn’t a whodunnit sort of book, as we know from the off exactly who did it. What we don’t know is why, and Fisher slowly reveals this information to us as we learn more about the characters through the viewpoints of two people, Helen, a mother, and Joe, who is her son. The alternating viewpoints works well and the writing is very good, barring a couple of slightly grating and clumsy analogies here and there. But my main problem with the book lies around the lack of tension and conflict. Under the circumstances you’d think there would be a palpable sense of urgency and tension, but the murder in the book, without giving any spoilers, doesn’t evoke the kind of revenge one might expect. The consequences and actions of the characters also seem just as frozen as the landscape they occupy. Maybe that was an intentional decision by the author, to show that the cold temperatures and snowy village of Wivenhoe, has also frozen the desires and actions of its people, but in any case neither works sufficiently well here.
The writing is beautiful in places, the details around characters and the insular world they occupied was very strong, but I felt too that there was a tendency for the author to focus a little too much on the smaller details and not enough about the wider world of Wivenhoe. Perhaps an external narrator, maybe even a Max Porter style narration of the place as a character in itself with separate sensibilities would have offered a wider lens to the story and its sense of scope. My other problem was the way it all finished. I kept waiting for something unexpected to happen, but instead the story follows a straight track to its conclusion and that left me a little cold.
The writing is beautiful in places, the details around characters and the insular world they occupied was very strong, but I felt too that there was a tendency for the author to focus a little too much on the smaller details and not enough about the wider world of Wivenhoe. Perhaps an external narrator, maybe even a Max Porter style narration of the place as a character in itself with separate sensibilities would have offered a wider lens to the story and its sense of scope. My other problem was the way it all finished. I kept waiting for something unexpected to happen, but instead the story follows a straight track to its conclusion and that left me a little cold.
December 26, 2025
this book had so much potential to be something amazing, but it fell so short
i ended up liking the idea of it more than the way in which it was executed, which i think was mostly because of the lack of world-building. since the book only spans one day, i feel as if there could've been more detail and nuance added to the lives of the characters
the most important question that i thought would be explored, was whether the lack of any authoritarian figures would change the behaviour of a tight-knit community in the wake of a murder, but it seems like everyone is numb to the atrocity? the man murdered had also just commit a rape, which is another evil, and moral-questioning act that i feel should have been explored more, but it ends up falling to the side
and despite being told from two perspectives, the characters tend to come across as shallow, and people i didn't find myself caring much about. i was glad that they made it out, but out of what? so much was left up to our inference, but i feel for this kind of book, world building and more explicit detailing would have been so much more helpful
"some footnote in this fucking psychodrama of male pain and pride"
this was so accurate, and it made me feel like the author was self-aware? but we still learn nothing. like so much could have been talked about, and there could've been 100 more pages where there could have been more depth and complexity to these characters, i feel like i truly could've understood and cared for them
the pace was also really slow at the start, and i really did not want to continue reading until it picked up and we began to learn more - but still not enough? exploring the morality of the human condition would have added so much more to the narrative arc, and would've helped the world to not feel as shallow as it did
2 out of 5, honestly kinda disappointing 😿
i ended up liking the idea of it more than the way in which it was executed, which i think was mostly because of the lack of world-building. since the book only spans one day, i feel as if there could've been more detail and nuance added to the lives of the characters
the most important question that i thought would be explored, was whether the lack of any authoritarian figures would change the behaviour of a tight-knit community in the wake of a murder, but it seems like everyone is numb to the atrocity? the man murdered had also just commit a rape, which is another evil, and moral-questioning act that i feel should have been explored more, but it ends up falling to the side
and despite being told from two perspectives, the characters tend to come across as shallow, and people i didn't find myself caring much about. i was glad that they made it out, but out of what? so much was left up to our inference, but i feel for this kind of book, world building and more explicit detailing would have been so much more helpful
"some footnote in this fucking psychodrama of male pain and pride"
this was so accurate, and it made me feel like the author was self-aware? but we still learn nothing. like so much could have been talked about, and there could've been 100 more pages where there could have been more depth and complexity to these characters, i feel like i truly could've understood and cared for them
the pace was also really slow at the start, and i really did not want to continue reading until it picked up and we began to learn more - but still not enough? exploring the morality of the human condition would have added so much more to the narrative arc, and would've helped the world to not feel as shallow as it did
2 out of 5, honestly kinda disappointing 😿
January 12, 2025
“'The prelude to real violence is not shouting and screaming, but something low and musical; the tension coiled in the belly.” Samuel Fisher’s novel Wivenhoe is brief but fully realised, tense and beautiful. Set in an alternate present, in a small village in a frozen, apocalyptic England, it opens with the discovery of a murder: Patrick, stood over Ian, axe in hand. The novel unfolds in the space of the following twenty-four hours, and it alternates between Patrick’s stepbrother Joe and stepmother Helen, their perspectives clashing as they both reckon with the shocking act of violence, their failures to prevent it, and the question of what they will do next: how to live in a society tainted by such association, let alone one that has already collapsed. Regret is constant; Helen asks “How could we miss what he was going to do?”, and Joe wonders “Is this why he didn’t try to stop Patrick? An instinctual kinship for violence?” The novel is concerned with remembering, from the endless games of “where were you when”, to Helen’s slipping, sloping sense of memory and time: “First kiss first fuck first place first plates first son which sends her looping back to the past”. Of course, every apocalypse story is really about memory — survival both enables memory of the self and feeds on memories, preserving or warping them. Fisher captures this so perfectly, subtly; never detracting from the family psychodrama, still politically + personally perceptive. “It’s amazing how living with pain makes you so alive to every feeling, like your skin has opened, offering your nerves up to the air.” “How she felt love in her teeth, how it thrummed in her bones.”
March 30, 2024
Set in a coastal town a year after the climate crisis - several feet of snow has covered everything and there are rumours of a polar bear this far south. England has coastal exit points that rescue people and take them to some undefined location, but people remain and those people live a cold existence reliant on outside aid. It is about one such community. The book starts with what in any circumstance would be a horrifying event and the community needs to deal with what would have been serious crime if the community was still policed.
We get to know a few individuals associated with the man holding the axe. They have come to completely accept and settle into the preceding year’s sea change of circumstance, normality has forever changed.
These are people who have known each other since childhood. After the event emotions run high behind closed doors, but there is an apathy to act. Perhaps this is because they understand the sequence of events or perhaps because they know the individuals so well; they have their own interpretation of who was to blame and who if anyone should be punished. These interrelations with the apparently guilty creates a sort of impasse. We follow that as the book unfolds. Will they act?
The ending may not be the resolution some may expect, but perhaps the book finishes in the only way it could once you understand a little more about the people ( no spoilers).
We get to know a few individuals associated with the man holding the axe. They have come to completely accept and settle into the preceding year’s sea change of circumstance, normality has forever changed.
These are people who have known each other since childhood. After the event emotions run high behind closed doors, but there is an apathy to act. Perhaps this is because they understand the sequence of events or perhaps because they know the individuals so well; they have their own interpretation of who was to blame and who if anyone should be punished. These interrelations with the apparently guilty creates a sort of impasse. We follow that as the book unfolds. Will they act?
The ending may not be the resolution some may expect, but perhaps the book finishes in the only way it could once you understand a little more about the people ( no spoilers).
June 19, 2022
Set in an alternate present, where the climate crisis has buried the UK beneath endless snow, a cut-off village community is rocked by the brutal murder of one of their own. Told from the dual perspectives of a mother and her adult son (the step-mother and step-brother of the killer), the book asks us to consider the motivations and ramifications of violence, and what parts of society are worth holding onto when the world is falling apart.
Fisher writes incredibly well, his descriptive prose evoking the barren, frozen landscape and the characters’ isolation to great effect, without feeling dense or flowery. Tension swells throughout the narrative, and though the expected climax never quite comes, this ties in thematically with the idea of breaking toxic cycles of violence, and knowing when to admit defeat.
Tragic yet hopeful, Wivenhoe’s timely look at taking back control when it feels like the world is on pause is sure to resonate with many.
Fisher writes incredibly well, his descriptive prose evoking the barren, frozen landscape and the characters’ isolation to great effect, without feeling dense or flowery. Tension swells throughout the narrative, and though the expected climax never quite comes, this ties in thematically with the idea of breaking toxic cycles of violence, and knowing when to admit defeat.
Tragic yet hopeful, Wivenhoe’s timely look at taking back control when it feels like the world is on pause is sure to resonate with many.
March 7, 2023
This took me longer than it should have to read.
I just didn't feel compelled to pick it up.
The content I was interested in (being climate change and the murder) took place a lot off page, and from the beginning, so already I had this disconnect as a reader just ghosting through various povs.
I struggled to connect who was close to who and because I didn't have any loyalties (because all the initial drama happened off page) I found myself not really caring about their individual lives, which also added to the lack of desire to pick it back up.
Helen didn't seem to like very many people and I don't know why but her whole demeanor just irritated me. I chilled out as I got to know her more.
I began to fall into step a little more as the story was coming to a close.
The content made me think of Ali Smith.
Pick it up, give it a go & enjoy! >(^_^)<
Gén
I just didn't feel compelled to pick it up.
The content I was interested in (being climate change and the murder) took place a lot off page, and from the beginning, so already I had this disconnect as a reader just ghosting through various povs.
I struggled to connect who was close to who and because I didn't have any loyalties (because all the initial drama happened off page) I found myself not really caring about their individual lives, which also added to the lack of desire to pick it back up.
Helen didn't seem to like very many people and I don't know why but her whole demeanor just irritated me. I chilled out as I got to know her more.
I began to fall into step a little more as the story was coming to a close.
The content made me think of Ali Smith.
Pick it up, give it a go & enjoy! >(^_^)<
Gén
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