Imogen West Knights reveals family silence and repression in a way which feels almost agonisingly true to life. The narrative voice is fluent and assured, with an eye for detail and original images: a cup of tea is “crunchy with limescale”; clearing up after one of their father’s rages is “rebuilding the set on which their performance of normal life takes place”. West-Knights deftly shows us that the relationship between the siblings, and with their dad William, is anything but straightforward.

The tension might have built up over years but considering they have been living their own lives, there was only really three days for everything to resurface.As the setting for the climax of Imogen West-Knights’s subtle and compelling debut Deep Down, it is certainly fitting: in the wake of their father William’s death, the siblings begin to explore hidden and submerged memories from their childhood. The only thing I would say (and it may well have been updated in the finished copies), was that it would’ve been helpful to have time frames detailed as it did jump around and you kind of had to guess when a flashback was etc. This perceptive account of the undercurrents that shape our family relationships and the ways in which they play out in adulthood had me gripped.

You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Intermittent scenes show episodes from this history that allow the reader glimpses of the threat that shadowed Tom and Billie through childhood. Deep Down is something altogether darker; an examination of the legacy of abuse shot through with sharp wit and compassion. Funny, moving and unexpected, Deep Down is an empathetic and hard-hitting look at both the struggles and the joys of sibling relationships, and the realities of grieving the loss of someone who was already an absence.When their explorations lead them to the infamous Paris catacombs, they will finally be forced to face the secrets lurking in their past that illuminate the questions in their present. Such crispness could have given the narrative a slightly sneering edge, but West-Knights’ quiet focus on the vulnerability of her lead characters grounds the novel in a more humane place. I found Tom’s story more compelling but maybe that’s just because I love Paris and can’t resist a bit of romance 🤷‍♀️ Together the siblings make for some uncomfortable reading, finding any reason to pick at each other and disagree until it all comes to a head in the catacombs (loved this little sidebar of the story, fascinating!

This is a tender story about families and how you need them to cope through some of the worse possible times of your lives. Perhaps we could have used another character - like a sibling or a cousin - who has kept in touch with both siblings to help bridge the gap, and keep the action, communication, and tension between our main characters.

A brilliant page-turner - I also wanted to pause every few paragraphs and read aloud as a treat for whoever happened to be sitting next to me. When Billie stays in Tom’s cramped garret, he recognises that she “sleeps as she always has, on her front, arms pinned behind her and her face squashed up by the pillow like someone being punched”. Tom and Billie’s memories, vivid with the clarity that childhood shame or fear can retain, are therefore presented with the same immediacy as the days of limbo between death and funeral.