A book for fans of Raj’s work: The Bee Keeper of Aleppo by Christie Lefteri, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Kahled Hosseini The Stranding published in the summer, its timing and subject matter eerily apt. At the outset, heroine Ruth survives an apocalypse by hunkering down in the mouth of a dead whale on a New Zealand beach alongside a stranger, and the ensuing story, which vacillates between past and present, charts both her former life and the new life she’s compelled to build.

The Stranding By Kate Sawyer | Used | 9781529340662 - Wob The Stranding By Kate Sawyer | Used | 9781529340662 - Wob

Sawyer's characterisation throughout This Family is excellent; although there were many different characters and different PoVs I was clear about whose perspective I was reading at all times. I can definitely see the interest, however; one story split into two is an excellent idea, but sadly it didn’t pay off. Each side was rather interesting alone, but combined it seemed rather messy and confused. The Stranding is a meditative examination of life and death. It's also a useful manual for surviving nuclear Armageddon - turns out you can hide under under the tongues of large mammals.

In the After timeline, Ruth and Nik, the only two survivors in the area, try to survive by scavenging, fishing and farming--the usual post-apocalyptic stuff. But where you might expect something eventful happening, nothing much does. The story never moves beyond the area they start the After timeline in, and other than the catastrophe, the book is uneventful. It's all just glimpses of Ruth's life without ever delving deep enough for real character growth. It was a pleasant enough read, but I missed some meat to the story. This combination will seem unnatural to some. For one thing, post-apocalyptic robinsonades and women’s fiction are typically targeted at very different audiences. For another, the structure of The Stranding can leave the reader feeling disoriented at first, alternating as it does between those chapters centred on Ruth’s post-nuclear-event survival and those on her relationship with gaslighting boyfriend Alex. But Sawyer trusts her readers to come along with her and the risk pays off. The narrative settles into a compelling rhythm and, before long, it starts to become clear that these two seemingly opposed genres have a great deal in common. Wow. I knew I adored Kate's writing after reading The Stranding earlier in the year but this one had something magical about it. The characters felt so real. Their problems, feelings and emotions vividly handled. I loved Mary's relationship with her mother in law (Irene), and the questions this raised about our obligation to family. Even though they are not blood relatives, Mary has still taken care of her mother in law, more than Irene's own biological children have. She knows Irene on a deeper level than Richard ever will.

The Stranding by Kate Sawyer | Goodreads The Stranding by Kate Sawyer | Goodreads

Wholly original, haunting and beautiful, this is a novel about life and survival, death and grief plus everything in between * Neema Shah, author of Kololo Hill * I used to devour dystopian novels; The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and 1984 by George Orwell being two of my favourites. I think that this will appeal to readers who love family sagas and the intimate dynamics of family life. Sawyer says the initial idea for the plot came from a simple writing prompt during a 28-day challenge. ‘At the beginning of 2018, I was working mad hours as an events producer to save money for fertility treatment to try for a baby as a solo mum,’ she explained. ‘The prompt on day three was “Blue Whale”. I remember sitting on the bus to the tube before dawn, on the way to work, typing into my phone what would later become what is central to The Stranding: a family living inside the bones of a whale following an apocalyptic event.A terrific debut. Brave, unexpected… transfixing and captivating… full of hope, resilience and love’ THE SUNDAY TIMES A novel that has stayed with me for weeks afterwards . . . Perceptive and unflinching’– Jessie Burton, author of The Miniaturist

The Stranding: THE CAPTIVATING WORD OF MOUTH HIT OF THE The Stranding: THE CAPTIVATING WORD OF MOUTH HIT OF THE

A quiet, piercing contemplation on what really matters when it comes to the end of the world. Strange and beautiful’– Abigail Dean, author of Girl A Where most dystopian stories are rife with the usual tensions of people murdering each other for resources, zombies, etc, this book takes a more quiet, meandering journey. The story is told in two timelines where we follow Ruth: Before the catastrophe and After the catastrophe. What the catastrophe is, exactly, we're never told. Ruth avoids news at all costs Before, and After all we really know is something happened and the whole world was flooded with...something. Fire? Radiation? Bombs? No idea. This is a big claim to make for a novel. His point, says Ghosh, is not just about the book itself, but the welcome it received (including being shortlisted for the Booker prize). “It wasn’t hived off into the usual silos of climate change or speculative fiction, but was treated as a mainstream novel. I do think that was a very major thing. Since then, there’s been an outpouring of work in this area. In my own personal inbox, I get two or three manuscripts a day.”It's a very different book and much more of a slow burn but it drew me in with the flawed but realistic characters, slow reveal through the timelines and the beautiful writing. I would often think about it and the characters, particularly Ruth, the woman around my age – how she came to be there, what might lead an ordinary woman to such a strange situation. Then in March 2019, in Denmark for the fertility treatment that would result in my daughter, I sat down in my hotel room and started to write Ruth’s story from the beginning.’ For a book that has quite a meditative tone, it is not at all slow paced. The chapters are fairly short, and it is very difficult to end a reading session on a present day chapter because the next one will segue into a memory that you will be curious to access. Mary knew that this was the house for her family whenever she laid eyes on it. Now, decades later, she is getting married and the house is playing a huge part. Mary's family have, like a lot of us, been broken and mended across the years and the story is told both in the here and now and in retrospect. A heartbreaking novel of love, loss and hope about a woman who hides from the end of the world in the belly of a whale.

Castaway: Review of The Stranding by Kate A Brand New Kind of Castaway: Review of The Stranding by Kate

I haven't ever really read anything that meshes together so well a longer-term post-apocalyptic storyline (think: The Road, Oryx and Crake, The Day of The Triffids,) with a melancholy slice of life type narrative that is only thematically tied to the former in a character driven way - a lot of dual narrative apocalyptic books focus on the pre-catastrophe and the events that lead up to that, but Ruth is just living her life, if anything she's actively avoiding the news cycle. The two stories are joined by Ruth's journey and growth and relationships, not the end of the world and how that came to be. I was really glad I started reading this book when I was at home, because Rosie's circumstances absolutely broke my heart, and were quite triggering for me. It's not much of a spoiler to mention here because it does happen so close to the start of the story, but Rosie's mother commits suicide while she is very young, and she subsequently lives with her Dad (Richard) and Mary, along with her two half-sisters (Emma and Phoebe). I started this novel with great hopes but at some point I became disconnected. I regret that and the fact that I found it impossible to rescue myself. This was in part due to the switching between timelines and narratives which I am afraid to say confused me, and in part simply because I felt a total disconnect with these characters. This is a family with a difficult past and the tension between them was tangible and totally to be expected but at points this just made me feel rather uncomfortable. Holds the big within the small, the intimate within the epic’– Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Mercies

The Stranding is a beautifully crafted allegorical tale of survival, perseverance and the acceptance of change that I can wholeheartedly recommend. I found it easy to read, it covered the questions I’d asked in my mind with each chapter, revealing a bit more each time until finally it all came together. Beautiful and harrowing but also optimistic and extremely moving . . . a truly arresting depiction of an unlikely relationship' - Clover Stroud, author of The Wild Other The Stranding begins with the end: a Doomsday-type apocalypse that our protagonist, Ruth, survives by climbing inside the mouth of whale. Yep. I know. But read up on your whale facts, folks. FASCINATING. Ruby was born on December 9 and Kate filed her final draft to her agent the week before Christmas. The two experiences - having a baby and writing a book - are akin in some ways, she reflects: “Both are fraught with fears and full of joy.” Bury St Edmunds Cathedral in Winter (53789068)