From the prize-winning author of The Still Point, a bewitching, brilliant novel which dances the fine line between reality and fantasy to explore the dark edges of desire
On a remote island in Orkney, a curiously matched couple arrive on their honeymoon. He is an eminent literature professor; she was his pale, enigmatic star pupil. Alone beneath the shifting skies of this untethered landscape, the professor realises how little he knows about his new bride and yet, as the days go by and his mind turns obsessively upon the creature who has so beguiled him, she seems to slip ever further from his yearning grasp. Where does she come from? Why did she ask him to bring her north? What is it that constantly draws her to the sea?
A masterpiece. It is seductive, beguiling, lureful - like a mermaid calling us into darker, deeper waters -- Scarlett Thomas
Lyrical and compelling... entirely original... In Orkney myth slips free from the dust and politesse of the library, and assumes a vivid, dangerous and unparaphraseable existence... Readers will be gripped from start to finish... A beautiful and poignant novel -- John Burnside * Times Literary Supplement *
What begins as a familiar, almost fairytale-like narrative ends as something more fragmented, unsettling, and odd... Providing a brooding, bruised, ever-changing backdrop to all this is Orkney, the book's most compelling character of all... Breathtaking -- Chitra Ramaswamy * Scotsman *
Delicate [and] haunting... With this intense, daring book, Sackville - already a writer of promise - has shown how very good she can be -- William Skidelsky * Daily Telegraph *
Poetic, dreamlike and beautifully written -- Kate Saunders * The Times *
Its dreamlike ambiguity is heightened by Sackville's poetic sensibility... Orkney is a haunting tale of longing and possessiveness that puts one in mind of the great literary studies of obsession -- Alastair Mabbott * Herald *
The prose is rich with marine imagery, and there's a haunting atmosphere of mystery and melancholy -- Brandon Robshaw * Independent on Sunday *
Sackville is one of the UK's most exciting new writers... She is a genius with her turn of phrase: deft, evocative and clever... Truly remarkable -- Lizzie Pook * Stylist *
The eerily gifted Amy Sackville bring[s] mysteries to bear on the Scottish archipelago in her second novel, Orkney -- Boyd Tonkin * Independent *
Sackville's second novel is strangely beautiful and absolutely beguiling, full of magical turns of phrase... It is a masterful depiction of the treacherous waters of desire -- Rebecca Morrison * Independent *
Intelligent, unsettling and replete with deep dark adult magic... a joy to read -- Bidisha
Sackville clearly has a gift for the poetic, writing beautifully of everything she touches upon -- Francesca Angelina * Sunday Times *
Poetic, lyrical, lush in texture... Orkney has power -- Holly Williams * Independent on Sunday *
A lilting, flowing narrative suggestive of sea rhythms... Intelligent and evocative -- Theresa Munoz * Sunday Herald *
In [Sackville's] adept hands this lyrical tale of a honeymooning professor and his enigmatic young bride brings the murky maritime beauty of the remote Scottish Archipelago to life * Vogue *
A haunting novel set on a beautifully described remote island of Orkney... It's like a folk ballad, full of otherworldly emotion and strange impulses -- Eithne Farry * Marie Claire *
Sackville writes like a dream (in all senses), conveying both the uncanny power of love and the inscrutable heartbreak of loss * Kirkus Reviews *
The intense beauty of the language beguiles the reader with its lilting poetic rhythms and we can hear the constant ebb and flow of the sea... Sackville is a great literary talent, one to watch in the future * Bookmunch *
Sackville has written a rich and rhythmic book of enchantment, a book possessed and of possession... Remarkable * Words of Mercury *
Sackville manages to capture something genuinely interesting about romance: that you can fall in love with someone without having a clue who they really are -- Thomas Quinn * Big Issue *
Beautiful descriptive prose * Northern Echo *
A remarkable achievement * Desperate Reader blog *
The great power of the novel is its lyricism, which gives the bleak and inhospitable landscape an air of enchantment -- Eli Davies * Review 31 *
The foreboding atmosphere that Sackville's prose creates is a joy -- Gemma Kappala-Ramsamy * Observer *
As lovely as it is unsettling, a brooding, hypnotic novel that draws upon a panoply of folklore to tell a modern tale of love and obsession... Entrancing, intelligent, and as consuming as the obsessions it explores, [this] is a novel to dive into with a lungful of breath * Bookslut *
[With] prose that can feel like poetry, [this] is very much a book for language-lovers... Sackville spins a beautiful web * Weekly Standard *
Her prose shimmers. This reviewer would be consumed by envy were her books not such an absolute pleasure to read * Country Life *
A troubling, deeply romantic tale of the difference between the feverish illusion of love and its more humdrum reality * Belfast Telegraph *
Masterfully self-contained... Sackville's rare gift is for rendering the ordinary so distinctly that it becomes fantastic... the prose is so compelling one does not read to find out what happens, but to find out how it will be described -- Hannah Tennant-Moore * New York Times *
Poetic, dreamlike and beautifully written -- Kate Saunders * The Times *
Deeply poetic and fanciful -- Emma Hagerstadt * Independent *
Exquisite * Sunday Mail (Glasgow) *
- Winner of Somerset Maugham Award 2014 (UK)
ISBN: 9781847086655
Dimensions: 197mm x 130mm x 15mm
Weight: 187g
224 pages