BOOKS OF THE YEAR Part 3: chosen by our contributors

Here's the final part of our roundup and our chance to thank our reviewers for their generous contributions throughout the year. We couldn't do this without you! Thanks too to all our followers. We hope everyone's found something here - or maybe several titles - to add to your reading pile for 2026.

John Newman chooses something old and something new: My reconnection with the work of Rosemary Sutcliff continued this year and I was really thrilled to find a second hand hardback edition of Knight’s Fee complete with Charles Keeping illustrations. I f could not recall reading of how Randal, an abandoned kennel boy overcomes adversity to become a knight. Sutcliff brilliantly uses his rise to explore how the Saxon and Norman population find a common enemy in the French and those attempting to usurp the throne at the end of the eleventh century.

Sometimes picking up a proof copy can lead to a major reading experience. Such is the case with Solvej Balle’s On the Calculation of Volume. The story of how an antiquarian book dealer awakes continuously on the 18th November and how she attempts to adapt is told a day at a time. I'm now up to Volume 3 of a planned septology and I can’t stop recommending them.

John Newman is an independent booksellers at Newham Books. 

Penny Dolan chooses A Voice in the Night by Simon Mason, the fourth in his excellent ‘DI Wilkins’ crime series: Two murders, set in a rather unlovely Oxford: the stabbing of a security guard and a mysterious death-by-drowning of a retired academic.

DCS Wainwright, the ruthless new Superintendent at Thames Valley Police, wants both murders solved. She also wants one of two officers out of the service. Will it be handsome, black, college-educated DI Raymond Wilkins? Or his ‘past partner’: trailer-trash, trackie-bottomed, single-parent DI Ryan Wilkins, who must have ‘no responsibility’, yet somehow fixes on essential facts?

Though each Wilkins goes their own way in sorting out the mystery, they also face painful responsibilities in their own lives. A Voice in the Night, with its compelling heart, makes my Book of the Year 2025, though I must add that the three earlier DI Wilkins novels are worth reading first.

Mary Hoffman: My fiction-reading has involved a lot of re-reads. I discovered Elly Griffiths’ wonderful Ruth Galloway series of detective novels in June and have read all fifteen and am now re-reading them. The first is The Crossing Places and I heartily recommend them. The heroine is middle-aged, not slim and fashionable, but is a forensic archaeologist. Yet Ruth Galloway is not short of male admirers.

I’ve also been re-reading my way through my extensive Anne Tyler collection and am six books in so far. I got the latest Jackson Brodie novel by Kate Atkinson at Christmas last year – Murder at the Sign of the Rook (Doubleday), so of course I then had to re-read all the others. And I belong to a book group which also sometimes supplies titles I know already, including my own choice, The Leopard (Collins and Harvill Press) by Giuseppe Tommasi di Lampedusa, partly inspired by the recent Netflix series, which played fast and loose with the plot but was beautifully cast and filmed. It was first published in Italy in 1958 and the English translation two years later, both after the author’s death. I must have first read it in sixth form; anyway, I seem always to have known it and it remains one of my favourite books. 

Other favourite re-reads of the years have been Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light, which I enjoyed much more second time round and Irène Nemirovsky’s Suite Française, which ditto. Our last book club title of the Year is Pip Williams’ The Dictionary of Lost Words and it is a corker.  It may be hard to write a page-turner about a (fictional) girl helping to compile the OED, but Williams has done it. Happy reading!

Mark Davies has also chosen The Dictionary of Lost Words: Set largely in Oxford, the novel is structured to track the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through the life of the first-person character, Esme. As the daughter of one of the editors, Esme's awareness of the significance of words begins as a small child. As a adult, she is employed at the Dictionary, and determines to try to include 'lost' words of a more feminine derivation, having realised that the Dictionary was a male-dominated domain: the editors and compilers were men, the majority of cited sources were written by men, and most of the researchers were men. By retrieving otherwise ignored or mislaid words, and by talking to working class women, Esme collects the basis of her own small alternative 'Lost Words' dictionary. This feminist theme is interwoven with the simultaneous activities of the suffragette movement and the nursing of soldiers injured in the First World War, making the book both engaging, thought-provoking, and educational.

Mark Davies is an Oxford local historian, public speaker and guide. His latest publications are A Jericho Scrapbook: Inside an Oxford Community Saved from Destruction and Jericho - a Celebration.

Jane Dalton: My pick is The Glass Hotel by Emily St John Mandel. Ostensibly a warning of the devastation wreaked by ponzi schemes, this strange and haunting novel carries an undercurrent of a world in which women pay the price for men’s crimes and selfishness.

Chief among them is Vincent, who at school was straight-As pupil but whose talents go unrecognised. Without a career, she becomes a fake trophy wife to the "super-rich" Jonathan Alkaitis, while her half-brother Paul plagiarises her video work. He squanders his college education funded by his mother, whereas Vincent is haunted by the loss of her own beloved mother.

The many different shifts in time, perspective and tenses - present and past, including Paul justifying his actions to a therapist in later years - make for a read that’s as unsettling as offensive messages written on a hotel window - a key plot point.At the end, I had to return to the start to better relish the nuances and detail of the rich narrative in context.

Jane Dalton is a journalist for the Independent. Her first novel is currently out on submission to publishers. 

Leslie Wilson's choice is When I Was, by Miranda Miller. What struck me about this novel was the vulnerability of people trying to be adults, and somehow never managing it; the deeply insecure parents are imprisoned by their class and difficult background, trying to negotiate the world without enough tools to do so, at least not enough to fool other adults that they know what they're doing, and aren't we all like that at times? The four children are also struggling through their lives, particularly the youngest, an observant, sometimes truculent little girl who loves her parents in spite of their failings. The family relationships ring absolutely true.

There are passages of wonderful comedy, particularly the abortive excursion to Brighton in a hire car, which turns out a disaster, particularly for the car. There's  also deep and devastating sadness. Engaging, perceptive and compassionate, this is a novel that’s hard to put down.

Leslie Wilson’s latest novel is The War’s Not Over Yet.

Jane Rogers chooses Juice by Tim Winton: I love Winton’s work but I’d read enough utterly depressing cli-fi dystopias to feel reluctant about starting this. Juice is set in a lawless, scorched, barren Australia 200 years in the future – how could it not be grim? But Winton is a compelling writer. His narrator spins his tale to save his own life, at the hands of a lone killer who holds him, and the child he is trying to protect, captive. There are layers and layers of suspense, not just about the narrator but about his mother, wife, and child, and about the violent climate justice organisation both he and his captor have worked for (the chief targets are heirs to Big Oil). Winton is brilliant at raising complex moral issues; blame, revenge, honesty, and love. The astonishing humanity of the story makes it much much more than the recital of bleakness I was fearing. And his introduction of honourable AI in the final third of the novel raises questions which continue to haunt me.

Jane Rogers' latest publication is a short story collection, Fire-Ready.

Becky Jones: The book I loved most this year was The Wedding People by Alison Espach. It was the first book for a long time that hooked me on the very first page. Phoebe, a divorced academic, arrives at the Cornwall Inn to find she is the only guest who is not there for the elaborate week-long wedding of Lila and Gary. When the bride realises, she is furious – this depressed stranger could ruin her meticulously planned celebrations. As things pan out, however, Phoebe becomes important to her in ways neither of them could have imagined.

What I loved about this book was the writing – sometimes I find myself aware of the craft of writing which can sometimes detract from the enjoyment as a reader. But with this book, I could admire the writing whilst laughing and crying and being fully absorbed in the story. The premise was perfect – a week-long wedding in a hotel. It was a stage set for drama, full of surprises with wonderful, fully formed characters and sparkling, funny dialogue. But what I loved most was the way themes of loneliness, depression, grief and being different were treated with such humour. An uplifting read.

Becky Jones' first novel, Searching for Amy, was published this year.

David Breakell has chosen The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, translated by Hugh Aplin: Written in the era of Stalin's show trials, this political satire cum fantasy horror was finally published only when the author - and Stalin himself - were both long dead. In a surreal Moscow where most of the humane, moral characters are to be found in a mental institution, Bulgakov skewers Soviet society with prose which is, at turns, darkly comic and terrifying. For me, its most compelling aspect is the 'novel within a novel': the eponymous Master is struggling to complete his manuscript, a historical novel which reimagines a single day - the day of Christ's crucifixion - from the point of view of Pontius Pilate. In the hours after Christ's death, Pilate tries, unsuccessfully, to alleviate his sense of guilt. Sprinkled through the text of the main narrative, these chapters provide a brilliant counterpoint to its satirical message. But also perhaps hope for the Master and Margarita.

David Breakell's first novel is The Alchemist of Genoa - read a Q&A with David next Monday.

The choice of Alison Layland is Audrey Magee's The Colony: There’s something about islands, and I realised recently that I've visited quite a few in my reading this year, all of them as exciting and intriguing an experience as a real-life trip across the sea currents.

In The Colony, the inhabitants of a small island off the coast of Ireland are visited by an English artist and a French linguist, who battle one another for the soul of the island’s people and their language, to the bewilderment of the islanders themselves. In a microcosm of colonialism, their desires and actions have profound consequences. This is a beautifully written, engaging read with brilliant characterisation and dialogue, and so much between the lines.

Other excellent island-based novels I’ve read this year are: Little Great Island by Kate Woodworth; Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy; Muckle Flugga  by Michael Pedersen; Island by Jane Rogers. Maybe I’ve been drawn to island-set novels recently as my novel, After the Clearances, is largely set on the fictional island of Ynys Hudol, inspired by Bardsey off the north-west coast of Wales.

Alison Layland's latest publication is After the Clearances.

Nick Manns recommends Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes: In Rome, one Sunday in November 1950, Valeria Cossati walks into a tobacconist’s and asks the shopkeeper for cigarettes and a child’s exercise book. The shopkeeper says it’s forbidden to sell non-tobacco products on a Sunday. With sudden urgency (‘I need it’), Cossati persuades him to break the law, and with the notebook hidden beneath her coat, walks into the street, past a watching policeman.

‘I need it’ marks the point when de Céspedes’ character steps beyond the role of compliant housewife and selfless mother and speaks for herself. The ‘forbidden notebook’ – her diary of domestic events – becomes a document of resistance: reports from a strange country.

Written five years after the fall of Italian fascism; 18 months after the publication of The Second Sex, Valeria Cossati walks towards our own time. She says, ‘This is what I saw; this is what I worked out.’

Nick Manns has written four novels for young adults and is the founder-director of Dyslexia Lifeline.  

Paul Dowswell couldn't decide on just one, so chose three! Firstly, A Village in the Third Reich. Julia Boyd, who also wrote the fascinating Travellers in the Third Reich about tourism in Hitler’s Germany, excels in this captivating account of the Nazi-era lives of the people of Oberstdorf in the Bavarian Alps. Not a good bedtime read for anyone worried about the state of the world; It gave me nightmares.

Secondly, Long Island by Colm Toibin. I loved Brooklyn, both film and book, so was keen to catch up with Eilis Lacey, Tony Fiorello and Jim Farrell. We’re now in the 1970s and all is not well. Toibin writes so well about the longings and disappointments of his characters and leaves us on a cliff edge. I eagerly await the third instalment.

Lastly, Abbey Road. David Hepworth is a music journalist with a keen eye for the sort of ‘fancy that’ information my fellow music trainspotters love. He's also a successful publisher with a keen understanding of the £££ that oils the wheels of art. This book is a highly readable history of the famous London studio and, simultaneously, the history of recorded sound.

Paul Dowswell's latest title is Aliens: the Chequered History of Britain's Wartime Refugees

From our own Adèle Geras: Andrew Michael Hurley’s Saltwash is a book that lingers in your mind long after you finish reading it. It’s not as frightening as some of his others (try Starveacre for the most terrifying last paragraph I’ve read in years) but it does have what Hurley has always excelled at: an atmosphere that settles around you as you read like drizzle in an out of season seaside town. This is exactly what Saltwash is. I’m very partial to such settings. A man goes to meet a friend in the oddest seaside hotel you’ve ever visited. The friend isn’t there at first but turns up later. There’s a big party on that night, as it happens, and many strange guests are ready to attend. I shan’t say another word! Merry Christmas to all WR readers.

Adele Geras' latest novel, under the pseudonym Hope Adams, is Dangerous Women.

Linda Sargent's choice is What you are looking for is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama, translated by Alison Watts: a Japanese bestseller and it’s easy to see why. The story unfolds as we follow the interlinking lives of five characters from a range of ages and backgrounds, but all are at some kind of turning point in their life. They arrive at a community centre/library and are directed to the librarian Sayuri Komachi, who has an uncanny, almost magical, gift for deep empathy and she directs them to seemingly unlikely books that turn out to be exactly what they need. All the while she makes tiny felt gifts and all five of the characters in this story are given one, which is also significant in their progress too. I especially liked Masao’s crab which ends up on his daughter’s bag and is a pathway to their greater connection too. It is a book about community, connection, listening and kindness. Perfect for these somewhat overwhelming times in the world and emphasising the necessary treasure provided by libraries and librarians. I loved it.

Linda Sargent's most recent publication is Tosh's Island.

Jon Appleton chooses The Light of Day by Christopher Stephens and Louise Radnofsky, a compelling addition to the canon of queer British history.

Roger Butler was the first British man to publicly admit his homosexuality, lighting a touchpaper at a time (1960) when society condemned ‘inversion’, before sexual acts between consenting men were legalised. Christopher Stephens was a young Oxford student who became the older man’s friend and was gifted, upon Roger’s death, an episodic letter which revealed not only the unrequited longing Roger had for him (about which he knew) but the man’s extraordinary life as a private citizen turned activist during the early years of gay liberation. Extracts are interspersed with Christopher’s reflections on the friendship, on his own story, on the tricky matter of offering the right levels of affection and admiration to those we revere – not just in their lifetime but after they’ve died. It’s a compelling mix and part of the reason it’s my book of the year is that just a few streets away from where Christopher visited Roger in East Oxford, I made visits to my own friend and hero, writer Jan Mark, and since her death I have grappled with many of the questions Christopher confronts.

Jon Appleton is editor of the gab, which celebrates 20th century children’s literature: lettersfromrobin.com/the-gab

And finally ... a great note to finish on, with good advice for all of us! Venkatesh Swamy recommends Slow Down and Be Here Now, by Laura Brand, illustrated by Freya Hartas. These are times where the normal is rush, rush, rush. One keeps lurching from crisis to crisis and leaps from opportunity to perceived opportunity. For many, life has become one merry-go-round with no stop button. There have been days when I feel that I have been shot out of a cannon. Here’s a book for those moments. 

Slow Down and Be Here Now is a book that immediately needs to be introduced into children’s lives (maybe adults too). As are other titles in the Slow Down series. Written by Laura Brand and illustrated by Freya Hartas, it starts off with a simple tip - Be Here Now! 

Each of the short 46 chapters is fascinating and some of my favourites are: Watch a Duck Coat its Feathers, See a Grasshopper Jump, Watch a Family of Hermit Crabs Move House. And if I get the time, I will do just that. 

The book’s premise? When it is almost impossible to find joy, feel peace or follow curiosity, there are ways you can look after yourself, calm your body and mind, and being immersed in nature is just one of them. All you need do to see them is slow down.

Venkatesh Swami is the proprietor, with Swati Roy, of Eureka! Bookstore in New Delhi.

We'll be back to normal next week. Follow us for a great reading recommendation every Monday!

Q&A: Alison Layland talks to Linda Newbery about her new novel AFTER THE CLEARANCES

 

"It's not only a Welsh community, but also a large-scale environmental stewardship project that is threatened with destruction, uniting two of the key themes of the novel."

After the Clearances: They were eager to remind themselves, and teach the children, that nothing should be taken for granted; things didn’t just happen at the flick of a switch

In a fractured world, the past is never truly buried and the future depends on what we choose to remember.

On a remote island ravaged by storms, a community of exiles known as the Seeders fight to preserve a fragile, self-sufficient way of life. When Sandy arrives from the mainland bearing secrets, young Seeder Glesni is forced to confront long-hidden truths about her people.

Far away in the wild hills, Bela lives by her own rules. Fierce, unyielding and shaped by the land itself, her voice carries the weight of loss in a world scarred by collapse. But when she encounters Winter, a fugitive from a shadowy government programme, their unlikely bond forges a path that leads back to the Seeders and a reckoning with the myths that bind them all.

Rooted in Welsh history and rich with the rhythms of its language and landscape, After the Clearances is an evocative, hope-filled story of resilience, resistance and what it means to belong in the ruins of what came before.

Alison Layland answers questions from Linda Newbery.

Linda: First, congratulations on writing such a compelling follow-up to Riverflow. As you know, I admired and enjoyed that (a link to my review is below) and now find myself equally impressed by this new novel, which moves forward to 2056.

Alison: Thank you for the invitation; it’s lovely to chat with you here on Writers Review. I'm delighted you enjoyed both novels.

Linda: Although After the Clearances includes some of your earlier characters, it can also be read as a compelling stand-alone. It's difficult to say more without spoilers, but were you already thinking of this new setting and time period while working on Riverflow, or did the idea come to you later?

Alison: Although I knew the connections when I began writing After the Clearances, it wasn’t something I’d had in mind from the start. I was reluctant to let go of the Riverflow world, and since both novels are set against a background of concern for the environment, and the issues surrounding protest, it made sense to look at how my characters would be faring some 35 years on – the world has already changed considerably since 2019, with the effects of climate change becoming ever more apparent, and the UK laws on protest becoming increasingly draconian, so I wanted to imagine how things would be in the 2050s, when the Paris Agreement targets are supposed to have been met, but look unlikely to be achieved.

Linda: Clearances has a particular resonance in Scottish history and is equally dramatic here. Was After the Clearances always going to be your title?

Alison: It wasn’t; in fact, this is the first time I’ve been asked to change a title – no small feat, since I find titles difficult! My working title throughout the process of writing, which had become entrenched in my mind, was Tidings (reflecting both the ‘tide’ and ‘news’ meanings of the English word, as well as the Welsh word taid, grandpa, since Glesni’s grandfather is a significant figure). However, my publisher, Honno, had recently published a novel called Tiding, so we agreed to change it. The ‘Clearances’ in the novel refer to a government scheme of deliberate rural depopulation to new towns, with the aim of greater control and simpler distribution of scarce resources. This policy was officially dubbed the Resettlement, but popularly known as the Clearances (or Digartrefu in Welsh, with the added meaning of ‘making homeless’), with all the historical associations. There is a similar colonial feel to the hints in the novel at typical English attitudes to the Welsh language and culture.

Linda: I liked the framing of the story with the viewpoint of teenage Glesni, who was born on the island, Ynys Hudol, and has never known any other life. We meet the various other 'Seeders' as established members of the community (apart from Sandy, the new arrival), gradually learning about their occupations and experiences before coming to the island - Cai, for instance, had been a policeman who became disillusioned with increasingly draconian measures towards protestors. I found this effective - too much of this from the beginning would have taken our attention away from the island set-up. You obviously thought in great detail about Seeder philosophy and ground rules - there are sections of their manifesto, or creed, in the book. Was this your starting point, or did you elaborate as you got into the story?

Alison: My story always featured the Seeders as an idealistic community, living apart from the world but trying to establish a blueprint for a new way of life, kinder to both the environment and people. At first, I introduced various aspects of the community’s rules, customs and values, largely from Glesni’s point of view, within the main narrative, but at a later stage decided I could say more, while interfering less with the story, by incorporating extracts from Seeds of Change, the founders’ record of their experience and a blueprint for the community. I found it surprisingly easy, presumably since the community’s ethos was already embedded in my mind, and founder Edith Turner’s voice flowed readily (the pamphlet is credited to both founders, but for some reason I think of it as her voice). The hard part was slotting the extracts in, at the beginning of the relevant parts of the novel and at key points in the narrative, while taking care to edit out the previous references as appropriate, to avoid repetition.

Linda: Bela's sections are different in tone and style from the rest - first-person and very direct, a stream of consciousness. Living in the woods, in solitude until the fugitive Winter comes into her life, she is alone with her thoughts and impressions. Did you decide on this approach immediately, or was it something that grew from the writing?

Alison: Bela was there as a character from the start, as was her voice and attitudes. However, as I tend to make things up as I go along (I’m very much a ‘pantser’ rather than a ‘plotter’, to use the common writers’ terms), I only worked out where her story fits in as the novel developed.

Linda: It does take the reader a while to realise how Bela's sections connect with those about the islanders - it's a puzzle that slowly comes together, with hints along the way. Did this require careful tracking as you wrote - i.e. what you want the reader to guess at any point, and how soon the links and connections should be revealed?

Alison: It definitely required careful attention, but more at the redrafting and editing stages – which is how I tend to work. In the finished novel, some aspects are maybe revealed sooner than I intended, though it has varied from reader to reader. As I got feedback from early readers, it became clear that there were certain connections that some people were missing altogether, which made me realise I was perhaps being a little too subtle! I won’t talk about specific examples because of spoilers, but I hope I’ve managed to retain a certain amount of mystery without being downright confusing!

I did apply careful tracking throughout, as I always do when writing. I have a detailed timeline, both of characters’ backgrounds and events referred to – in the characters’ past but our future. I also have a detailed outline of each chapter with key points, both to ensure balance between chapters from different characters’ points of view, and also so I can detect and correct continuity issues if, or when, I move things around.

Linda: The main part of the story is set in 2056 but we're referred back to a dramatic incident in the 2030s in which some of the island community may have been involved. That the UK (not Welsh) government plans to take over lovingly restored land for a dam and reservoir to provide water supplies - for England! - was particularly poignant. Were you thinking of real-life settings where this sort of thing has happened?

Alison: Yes; the fictional Irlas Dam incident is based in part on the Llyn Celyn dam and reservoir. In the late 1950s/early 1960s, the Tryweryn river valley was dammed and the Welsh village of Capel Celyn drowned, to form what is now known as Llyn Celyn reservoir, which to this day provides water for the city of Liverpool. Despite extensive protests, both by the villagers themselves and much further afield, the project went ahead, drowning a traditional Welsh-speaking rural community. It was an significant event in the burgeoning Welsh language movement, which ultimately led to the language being given its due status in Wales, and to the fight for devolution. The beautiful and apparently peaceful waters of Lake Vyrnwy and the Elan valley reservoirs conceal similar tragedies, but it was Tryweryn captured the public imagination. This was partly due to its immortalisation in a famous graffitied slogan near Aberystwyth in the early 1960s that has become an icon – it even has its own Wikipedia page if you want to read more. The slogan Cofiwch Dryweryn (Remember Tryweryn) has seen a revival in recent years, with copies springing up throughout Wales.

In After the Clearances, it is not only a Welsh community, but also a large-scale environmental stewardship project that is threatened with destruction, uniting two of the key themes of the novel and highlighting the interconnectedness of social and environmental issues.

Linda: The 'Seeders' community on Ynys Hudol is convincingly drawn - the daily lives of the inhabitants, their communal beliefs and practices, but also the conflicts and tensions. Some members of the group are described as 'purists' - they want to live entirely self-sufficiently without recourse to trips to the mainland, or the use of money, and without harvesting fish from the sea - while others are more pragmatic. All this has the ring of truth about it which I feel must surely come from your own experiences with activist or community groups?

Alison: It’s largely human nature but yes, experience of community and activist groups comes into it! Although the Seeders are an idealistic community with a vision of how to live in the face of the effects of climate change, I wanted to make sure that they’re realistic, not all sweetness and light. There are always differences in opinion. For instance, there are constant debates within activist groups about whether it’s more effective to undertake direct action or concentrate on community-based activism, which takes time that we can ill afford to build up. I believe we need both – the attention-grabbing actions are still needed in the face of government inaction, but these need to be backed up by work at grass-roots level, both to do essential work in the community, but also to build up acceptance of, and support for, more radical protests.

Despite differences in opinion, the shared vision – both in real life and in the novel – is more important than the differences; my experience, for instance with deliberative democracy in people’s assemblies and guarding against the build-up of hierarchies, fed into the Seeders’ system of governance and decision-making, with Gatherings and regularly rotating co-leaders.

As far as the details of daily life are concerned, I enjoyed a number of fortnight-long stays on Ynys Enlli/Bardsey Island, which was the inspiration for my fictional Ynys Hudol. The guest accommodation there is lovely, the welcome warm and the island truly atmospheric, whatever the weather, but the houses have no electricity or running water and the facilities are basic (though there is excellent provision for guests, I hasten to add). These experiences helped to feed the detail of what life for the Seeders would be like. It also helped me become immersed in the atmosphere of the island – you can get a glimpse of this in the lovely video my daughter made on location to accompany the launch of the book. 

Linda: After the Clearances could be classified as cli-fi. All fiction set in the present day should surely at least include references to the existential crisis we all face, while stories set in the future will need to look at how the climate emergency has been addressed and how humanity has adapted (or failed to). Are there ‘cli-fi’ titles you particularly admire?

Alison: I recently loved The Wager and the Bear by John Ironmonger, published by Fly on the Wall press. With relatable characters and a brilliant combination of humour, tragedy and the tackling of serious issues, it’s the kind of enjoyable novel perfect for drawing people in – it’s made its way round my family with the speed of a calving glacier!

Another climate fiction novel I’ve particularly enjoyed is the magnificent Playground by Richard Powers, which does for oceans what The Overstory did so powerfully for trees.

And of course, there’s your own The One True Thing, a beautiful novel which may not immediately appear to be climate fiction, but has love of the environment and natural world firmly at its heart, as you suggest in your question.

Linda: Thank you! Can you give us any idea of what you'll write next? Are you thinking of making another leap forward in time with some of these characters, or will your next project go in a different direction?

Alison: I haven’t started writing a new book yet, but I’ve got ideas for Bela’s story in my mind – the events that led her to where she is now, and what shaped her unusual personality. Alternatively, I’m toying with the idea of connected short stories – before I began to write After the Clearances, I had an idea of people on Ynys Hudol sitting round a campfire, or the benches of the community’s roundhouse, sharing their stories. This didn’t come to pass, but may well make its way to the page in future!

Linda: Thanks so much for sharing these insights, and I hope After the Clearances will find its way to huge numbers of appreciative readers!

After the Clearances is published by Honno Press.

Linda's review of Alison Layland's Riverflow

Guest review by Alison Layland: SARN HELEN, a Journey through Wales, Past, Present and Future, by Tom Bullough

"What a journey he takes us on! Far more than a travelogue, far more than nature writing, far more than a social history of Wales, this is a cry from the heart." 

Photograph by Trina Layland

Alison Layland is the author of two psychological thrillers: Someone Else’s Conflict, a compelling narrative of storytelling and the aftermath of war, and Riverflow, a story of family secrets and community tensions against a background of flooding and environmental protest. She also writes short stories and flash fiction; she won the short story competition at the National Eisteddfod in 2002, and her story Quirky Robbers is featured in the Honno crime anthology, Cast A Long Shadow. Her new novel, After the Clearances, a climate fiction novel set in 2050 Wales, will be published by Honno in July 2025.

When not writing, she is an environmental and social campaigner, who enjoys walking, crafting, growing and foraging around her home on the beautiful coast of Anglesey. More on Alison's website.

Until recently, serious consideration of the climate and nature crises was relatively rare in books aimed at a general readership. How wonderful, then, to see the trend changing as this passionate book was chosen as the overall winner of the Welsh Book of the Year 2024.

The titular Sarn Helen – Helen’s Causeway, a Roman road running the length of Wales from Neath in the south to Llandudno and the Great Orme in the north – is the thread that binds Tom Bullough’s insightful observations together. The author began his long-distance walk, which he undertook in sections over the period of almost a year, in 2020, following the first Covid lockdown – potent timing, since this zoonotic pandemic was yet another consequence of the damage people are doing, and have done, to the natural world. The precise route of Sarn Helen has been lost in places, but with a blend of detective work and guesswork, he managed to follow to its end. Like the conquering Romans who built the road, it has been superseded and overlaid by centuries of development – a fitting portent for the direction in which our modern society is heading.

And what a journey he takes us on! Far more than a travelogue, far more than nature writing, far more than a social history of Wales, this is a cry from the heart. The writing is immersive and each chapter is preceded by a wonderful illustration by renowned artist, Jackie Morris, who also provides the cover. Yet even here, there is a dark undercurrent, for we are told in the introduction that each of the fifteen beautiful species – birds, mammals, insects and plants – are among the 17% of species threatened with imminent national extinction. This sets the tone, for while describing the landscapes he walks through, their people and wildlife, in all their glory and diversity, Tom Bullough never lets us forget the threats they are facing, or the damage that has been done – from over-grazed uplands to the all-pervasive noise pollution of aeroplanes and other vehicles.

It’s often hard to strike the right balance when writing about the climate – too much doom and gloom and readers either despair or are driven to feel there’s nothing they can do so why bother? Too much optimism and it’s easy to give the impression that all’s well with the world. Sarn Helen strikes just the right balance. The author’s passion for the Welsh landscape and people, its wildlife, mythology and history, shines through, celebrating what is all around us, but never shying away from the what we have lost and still stand to lose, as well as the desperate need for change. Although the nature writing, conveyed with a vivid attention to detail, is beautiful, the book shows that, as in the wider world, the problems facing Wales are not all directly related to the climate and nature. He explores Wales’s social and industrial history in some depth, even looking back to mythological times and chronicling a fascination with the Celtic saints, whose world was much closer to nature and more respectful of the ecosystems around us than our own.

For some chapters, and sections of his walk, he is joined by poet and novelist Chris Meredith, with whom he discusses the industrial history of the Valleys and the impact of the post-industrial legacy on both landscape and people, and by writer and fellow activist Jay Griffiths, whose observations add companionable touches of spark and humour. Throughout, from the industrial to the agricultural, people are the key. Miners or farmers, saints or Roman conquerors, people are placed in the context of their landscape. Climate breakdown and nature depletion not only impact the natural world, but the people who live there – and it is the people who hold the key to the solutions.

These moments of companionship are full of relatable debate, humour and fascinating dialogue. The other interludes, however, are a stark clarion call: the travelogue is punctuated by interviews with experts – a climate scientist, an ecologist, a coastal scientist and a geographer – which add scientific context but also a terrifying intensity. Although they set out the problems facing Wales, and the wider world, clearly and objectively, the interviewees’ despair at the lack of action to halt climate change and nature depletion is pervasive and their emotions all the more hard-hitting coming from professionals in their respective fields.

A similar authenticity is added by the author’s own campaigning. While protesting with Extinction Rebellion in September 2020, he was arrested, and his journey along Sarn Helen is interrupted in April 2021 by a court hearing. The text of his speech to the court is deeply personal and moving – the more poignant today as environmental protesters are now banned by law from presenting such defences.

Actions speak louder than words – or do they? In the case of Sarn Helen, Tom Bullough’s beautifully crafted words are as potent as many actions, in that they will hopefully inspire anyone who reads them, firstly, to love and value the world around them, and then to do all they can to try and put a stop to the damage that modern society is causing.

Sarn Helen by Tom Bullough, with illustrations by Jackie Morris, is published by Granta, 2023

Alison Layland's Riverflow is reviewed here by Linda Newbery.

RIVERFLOW by Alison Layland, reviewed by Linda Newbery

 

"It’s rare and refreshing to read a novel set in the here and now that has climate issues so firmly at its core."

This novel was a welcome surprise that came to me via a roundabout route. It began when I attended a Society of Authors ‘at home’ event – a workshop hosted by Lauren James, author of The Loneliest Girl in the Universe and Green Rising, and founder of the Climate Fiction Writers League. The focus of the session was how to bring climate concerns into fiction set in the present day – not necessarily foregrounding the various issues, but rather weaving in details as part of the daily lives and concerns of the characters.

I find it irritating to read fiction set in the present day that makes no reference to the climate emergency – especially when characters are taking flights here and there, driving big cars and eating steak in restaurants. It’s almost as if there’s a parallel world to ours with no looming crisis and with no need to change and adapt. It seems, both in young adult and adult fiction, that climate awareness is largely limited to ‘cli-fi’ – fiction usually set in the future, often involving fantasy. (An honourable exception to this is Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood – see our summer round-up.)

After the workshop I joined the Climate Fiction Writers League and was invited by Lauren to write a conversation piece with another author. This author turned out to be Alison Layland, whose novel, Riverflow, was published in 2019. As I haven’t yet published adult fiction with an environmental theme (working on it) Alison is to read my non-fiction title, This Book is Cruelty Free – Animals and Us. (For anyone who doesn’t yet acknowledge the link between animal agriculture and the climate crisis, please read the book, or for a more comprehensive overview, Philip Lymbery’s Sixty Harvests Left.) 

Knowing nothing of Alison Layland or her work, I found myself immediately drawn to her characters, setting and plot. Riverflow is set in a small Shropshire village, Foxover, close to which Bede and Erin, a couple in their thirties, have lived off-grid on a smallholding for many years. Until eighteen months ago they shared Alderleat with Bede’s uncle Joe, until he drowned in the surging river, leaving Bede unable to accept that his death was accidental.

The frictions and rivalries of a rural community are convincingly depicted. Bede and Erin, former activists, clash with local landowner Philip Northcote who’s developing a fracking site. Bede, clever at mechanics and problem-solving, is an idealist, probably on the autism spectrum and at times infuriating to live with; to some villagers he’s known as Eco, a nice demonstration of the ease with which people can pigeonhole and ‘other’ an outlier, avoiding the inconvenience of acknowledging that his views are both valid and necessary. He and Elin are devoted to each other, but with the unavoidable sticking-point that Elin wants children whereas Bede thinks it would be irresponsible to bring a child into this threatened world. Elin, too, tries to steer a calm course through village conflicts while Bede can never curb a sarcastic or angry response when challenged.

Partly through snippets of the journal Joe kept hidden, we’re drawn into the backstory of Bede’s upbringing. Never knowing who his father was, he was brought up by his mother until her death, when her brother Joe took him in. But Joe had secrets of which Bede is unaware and which begin to threaten the self-contained life he and Elin have built at Alderleat. The plot centres on a series of incidents involving Philip Northcote, his widowed mother Marjorie with whom Joe had a close relationship, and attractive newcomer Silvan, Northcote’s gamekeeper, who befriends Bede and Elin. Bede is apparently being framed for acts of minor sabotage – releasing pheasants reared for shooting, scratching the side of Northcote’s Bentley – and then for a far more serious crime. The revelation of who's behind this malice is cleverly constructed, with several clues hidden in plain sight.

What makes Riverflow so appealing is the deft and delicate portrayal of the shifting relationship between Bede and Erin, alongside the details of daily life which are always underpinned by environmental aspirations and what it’s practical to achieve. It’s rare and refreshing to read a novel set in the here and now that has climate issues so firmly at its core.

Riverflow is published by Honno Press. The conversation piece between Alison and myself is now online here.