"I was running hard, gasping for breath in a dark, damp lane interspersed by shards of moonlight. From what or to where? I had no idea".
The Echoing Shore by J.H.Mann is a gripping psychological thriller, set in Cornwall.
It's been a while since I've read a book at such a speed, just in a couple of days, I just couldn't put it down.
Blurb:
The Echoing Shore
A Yeovil Literary Prize award winner
A lifeboat is lost off Cornwall's wild Atlantic coast. All eight crewmen die. The cause is never fully explained. Ten years later, Kate Tregillis, the editor of a small, struggling newspaper, becomes obsessed with solving the longstanding mystery.
Her investigations provoke a backlash of threats and violence in the insular fishing community of St Branok. In exposing the truth, she risks the future of her newspaper and even her life - and discovers that the man she loves has his own secrets.
From the first pages, we are plunged into the tragic events that would shatter the local fishing community of St Branok. A lifeboat, the Talan Bray, goes into the vastness of the North Atlantic into the storm, only never to come back. Eight crew members perish, including a young man who's only just joined in. There are no answers as to what's happened during the storm.
A decade later, Kate Tregillis, who works as an editor in the local newspaper, is compelled to look into the circumstances of the disaster, when a London freelancer named Danny Flanagan comes into the offices of The Gazette to offer his services.
Kate wonders if bringing Danny into the fold while knowing almost nothing about him is wise, but the newspaper is struggling, they need all the help they can get to keep afloat.
"The fate of the paper was on a knife edge. It could go either way and it was down to me - and me alone - to find a solution. Danny might be part of the answer".
"Even with a skeleton staff, the Gazette was devouring money. We needed more than a few interesting stories to survive. We needed a bloody miracle".
When Danny suggests a feature on the tenth anniversary of the loss of Talan Bray, Kate knows it has to be handled diplomatically, or there will be repercussions.
"The loss of the Talan Bray had been the biggest story to hit St Branok in a generation - hit being the operative word. It'd rocked the community to its core. And there remained a bitterness and rawness about it locally which made it dangerous territory. Still, we needed the whole community to be talking about the Gazette. Better to be talked about than ignored".
When Danny starts digging without a care whose feathers he might ruffle, the locals don't take to it kindly. The community closes its ranks and breathes hostility not just towards the newcomer Danny, but also Kate. The threats and violence escalate, and the future of the newspaper is becoming even more bleak.
"The truth, as Danny had pointed out earlier, was that I couldn't stop him investigating. He was a freelancer, free as a bird: a journalist able to sell his story anywhere he chose. If I told him to get out of our offices, I'd lose any opportunity for the Gazette to be part of the story".
Will Kate and Danny be able to discover the grim truth of what's really happened on that stormy night ten years earlier?
Suspence and escalating menace are handled expertly, with the past stretching its tentacles into the present.
One of the things I particularly liked about the book is the realistic, ordinary-looking characters.
I recently read a snippet from a writer's newsletter where she describes her successful colleague. Apparently she writes romance only about young, beautiful, successful women who meet and fall in love with rich handsome blokes, and live happily ever after in mansions, etc. I thought then, that's the kind of books I tend to avoid, though I presume there's a market for them.
Both main characters in The Echoing Shore are not young, rich or beautiful, at least when it comes to their appearance. They are dedicated to their jobs, to the point of risking their livelihood and even their lives, searching for truth.
Cornwall is one of my most favourite book settings, but often, this location is seen through rose-tinted glasses, unduly sentimental and idealistic, with ever so helpful, welcoming neighbours, and friendly communities.
In this story, the small Cornish fishing village can be a hostile environment, aggressive, parochial, judgmental and truculent.
The descriptions of Cornwall are again, not of a picture-perfect variiety. This landscape is dark, dangerous and deceptive, yet also stunning in its intense beauty. The author captures the atmospheric background perfectly, in fact, it's not so much a background, as a living, breathing entity which builds the local character, with its resilience and determination.
"Another mist had rolled in from the Atlantic and the wind had died. An unnerving stillness prevailed. The ocean swelled languidly, seemingly as thick as treacle, exuding a quiet menace..."
The Echoing Shore is a character-driven narrative. Kate is a strong-willed protagonist who knows her own mind and is not easily scared off.
Tight plotting, authentic setting, convincing real characters make this book riveting, intense and dramatic.
Flew through The Echoing Shore. Highly recommended.
Many thanks to J.H.Mann and Rachel's Random Resources for my copy of the book!
Praise
for The Echoing Shore:
'A gripping story full of twists and turns' - Margaret James, Writing
Magazine.
'An enthralling read that keeps you guessing to the end' - Victoria Howard,
author and judge for the international 2023 Yeovil Literary Prize.
'I would definitely pick this book up from the bookshop shelf' - Claire
Gradidge, winner of the Richard and Judy Search for a Bestseller competition.
Purchase
Links
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Echoing-Shore-J-H-Mann-ebook/dp/B0DFT3LPTQ/
https://www.amazon.com/Echoing-Shore-J-H-Mann-ebook/dp/B0DFT3LPTQ/
Author
Bio –
Jason Mann
is an award-winning journalist and writer living in the South West of England
with Nicola, his wife, and their lively whippet, Patch. He is also a
shore-based volunteer for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Jason says:
‘Many of my stories are set in the wonderful county of Cornwall where truth can
sometimes be stranger than fiction. I have swum and surfed there much of my
life. It has been a special place for me with its legends, soaring cliffs,
rugged moors and wild seas. The landscape has a raw, mystical magic. My father
and mother’s recollections of rescues and tragedies on the North coast are
often the inspiration for my stories. My father became one of the county’s
early lifeguards after his predecessor was killed by a strike of lightning
while standing in waist-deep water during a rescue.’
Social
Media Links –
Facebook
– www.facebook.com/jason.mann.9047
Instagram
– www.instagram.com/jhmannauthor/
X
(Twitter) – www.twitter.com/JasonMa74964503
Website: www.jhmannauthor.com
