With an abandoned degree behind her and a thirtieth birthday approaching, amateur writer Bonnie Falls moves out of her parents' home into a nearby flat. Her landlady, Sylvia Slythe, takes an interest in Bonnie, encouraging her to finish one of her stories, in which a young woman moves to the seaside, where she comes under strange influences. As summer approaches, Sylvia suggests to Bonnie that, as neither of them has anyone else to go on holiday with, they should go away together - to the seaside, perhaps.

The new novel from the author of the Man Booker-shortlisted The Lighthouse is a tense and moreish confection of semiotics, suggestibility and creative writing with real psychological depth and, in Bonnie Falls and Sylvia Slythe, two unforgettable characters.

A gem of a book, bewitching and beguiling. Moore's writing is beautiful and precise. I loved it. -- SJ Watson

About the Author
Alison Moore's first novel, The Lighthouse, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Awards (New Writer of the Year), winning the McKitterick Prize. Both The Lighthouse and her second novel, He Wants, were Observer Books of the Year. Her short fiction has been included in Best British Short Stories and Best British Horror anthologies, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra and collected in The Pre-War House and Other Stories. Born in Manchester in 1971, she lives near Nottingham with her husband Dan and son Arthur.

Reviews

packs a mighty, subversive punch

* neverimitate *

So I've ended up with the thought that it's a psychological thriller about life, art, and inescapable fate - lets hope the author thought it was too! In another writer's hands, this would easily have turned into a high drama psychological thriller, Moore takes an altogether subtler approach, letting the menace slowly ooze out; I rather found myself wishing that she'd written Gone Girl ...

* Our Book Reviews *

Moore weaves a particular kind of magic from everyday details, and her way of making the banal thrilling reminded me of Alice Furse's Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, albeit with a rather macabre slant. Death and the Seaside is a story of manipulation and imagination, peppered with literary references, as much about the creative process as it is about the characters. The blend of genres and influences makes it feel, as many great novels do, quite unlike anything else I've read.

* Learn the Phrase *

Death and the Seaside is a psychologically astute novel of power, control and influence which will make you wonder how real your memories are and where your fears come from. Blending layers of memory and imagination there are signposts to the end everywhere, if you only know where to look. Clever and really quite disturbing.

-- Mel Mitchell * New Books *

It is a gripping tale of two women, of stories, memories and suggestibility.

-- Nat Marshall * The Owl on the Bookshelf *

Moore's masterful blend of genres and influences makes her third novel feel, as many great novels do, quite unlike anything else I've read. In entwining Bonnie and Sylvia's tales, Death and the Seaside delves deep into its characters' psyches; the result is quiet and brilliant, unsettling yet thoughtful, dreamlike and thrilling.

-- Blair Rose * Nudge *

Death and the Seaside is a tense, tightly plotted and darkly comical novel about writing, creativity, the power of suggestion and the quaint postcard version of the British seaside. Moore's writing is electric, it sizzles, and is alive with things unsaid. Though it's not a long novel, it is powerful and it certainly lingers, moving in and out of your mind like the tides.

-- Eleanor Baggley * Book Smoke *

Book of the day. Dense, complex, thought-provoking, it manages to be at once a fairytale and a philosophical treatise, high-octane thriller and literary interrogation. Like the dreams that haunt Bonnie's night-times, it holds its secrets close, and repays careful rereading. The end of the novel, abrupt and death-haunted, feels as neat and tight as a key in a lock, and sheds light on the mysteries that have gone before.

-- Sarah Crown * The Guardian *

She is both gifted stylist and talented creator of a new English grotesque.

-- Isabel Berwick * Financial Times *



Book Information
ISBN 9781784630690
Author Alison Moore
Format Paperback
Page Count 192
Imprint Salt Publishing
Publisher Salt Publishing
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 14mm