Superb on many fronts – a novel set in New Zealand

• Book: After the Fall
• Location: Hawke's Bay, Napier
• Author: Charity Norman

Review Author: Isabella Orff

An excellent novel in so many ways. It is set in New Zealand, and having been several years ago, it absolutely transported me back there, the animal noises, the landscape, the sounds, even the light (one of the main characters is an artist, so there are little parts that are devoted to light and scenery). It has a real glowering sense of menace once the family has relocated to the country from England, that builds up the pathos – and to be honest, I never really think of NZ in terms of malice and menace, so this felt like a very different angle. And the writing is so smooth, I can only compare it to a knife cutting through butter, dreamy and addictive….

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