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.
*** [OMETIMES, SUSAN WOKE to find that her limbs were dead] ***(Salt Publishing, 1 August 2016, paperback, 176 pages, borrowed from my library)
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This is my first time reading the author.
I really enjoyed this book. Death and the Seaside is much more than it appears to be. At a surface level it's a very short book about an unexpected friendship that blossoms between a woman, struggling to find her place in the world and her motherly landlady. There is much more going on than meets the eye. The book gets subtly darker and darker in tone as Bonnie falls deeper and deeper under Sylvia's spell. This little book lulls you into a false sense of security and at times the writing seems almost magical and dream-like. The book uses simple language at times but this doesn't mean the book is simple. It's a strange little, slightly morbid and unsettling tale.
