It has been a while since I wrote my last book review. In fact I had a bit of a break from reading anything at all for about a month or so. This is because in my day life I have started running a new business, and it has taken up a lot of my time. A month in, and on half term, things are calming down a little bit. Enough to at least write a book review, and maybe even finish reading the book I started reading before taking this new business on.

My next book review is of the book Whale Fall by Elizabeth O’Connor. I had seen this book very favourably reviewed on the BBC2 programme Between The Covers, and then when I went to visit my fantastic award winning local independent bookshop, The Heath Bookshop in Kings Heath, they had a copy. Not only that, but the owner was telling me that Elizabeth O’Connor is a local author. So of course I had to buy it and read it.

The blurb on the inside cover of the book says:

It is 1938 and for Manod, a young woman living on a remote island off the coast of Wales, the world looks ready to end just as she is trying to imagine a future for herself.

The ominous appearance of a beached whale on the island’s shore, and rumours of submarines circling beneath the waves, have villagers steeling themselves for what’s to come. Empty houses remind them of the men taken by the Great War, and of building a life in the island’s harsh, salt-stung landscape.

When two anthropologists from the mainland arrive, keen to study the island’s people, Manor sees in them a rare opportunity to leave the island and discover the life she has been yearning for. But, as she guides them across the island’s cliffs, she becomes entangled in their relationship, and her imagined future begins to seem desperately out of reach.

Elizabeth O’Connor’s beautiful, devastating debut tells a story of longing and betrayal set against the backdrop of a world on the edge of great tumult.

Whale Fall is Manod’s story. The whole thing is told through her eyes. The way she sees her family, her town, her life. The events that have shaped her, like her mother’s death and the responsibilities she feels towards her sister who she has been tasked with looking after – a responsibility that she takes on without complaint, but is also trapping her into staying in this town. Manor is different from the other girls on her island. They all seem content with their role, with the expectation that they will choose one of the boys from the island, or maybe from the mainland, and settle down with him and have her own family. Manor doesn’t want this life. She wants more from life than this, but doesn’t see how it is possible.

That is until two anthropologists arrive on the island sent to study its inhabitants. Manod is quite taken with these strangers. One a young man, who takes a shine to Manor as well and she dreams that he will take her away with him from this island and its lack of any future that she wants. The other is a female anthropologist, giving Manod hope that there are options available to women other than taking care of her father and sister or marrying a local man and taking care of him and their family.

Manor is a clever young woman, who speaks English better than the others on the island and so she offers her services as a translator to the anthropologists, Joan and Edward. But the more she works for them and sees the way that they see her community, her way of life and her, then her dreams of being able to escape become more and more shaky. She starts to dislike the judgments of these strangers.

I loved this book. I loved how Elizabeth O’Connor painted such a vivid picture of the island. Of the struggles of its inhabitants, of the harshness of their lives. She captured Manod’s feelings of being trapped on the island and in her current circumstances with no appealing way out. She captured Manod’s journey from being interested in, infatuated by and then unsettled by these strange island visitors.

O’Connor is a compelling author who writes beautifully. After reading this, I will absolutely look out for more books by her. I couldn’t put the book down. I wanted to know what happened and the story flew by. It is not a long book at 206 pages long, but it was definitely a page turner.

I would absolutely recommend this book. I would give it 5 out of 5 stars, and I think it is in the running for one of my favourite reads of 2025.