Verge

by Nadia Attia

The day Rowena Murray was born, 250 starlings fell like stones from the sky. Ever since, she has been marked by Death. First the visions; then her boyfriend died suddenly; now her father, too.

Salvation, Rowena is told, lies to the North: in Culcrith, where her grandmother can save her from the curse. Her mother's farmhand, a young Egyptian man named Halim, is to drive her.

The trip isn't easy. Rowena is rebellious, spiky, and sees bad omens everywhere; Halim is reserved, quiet and prefers to play by the rules; the land is mysterious and treacherous, with people who have married old traditions with new prejudices. The pair's battle of wills may yet develop into an alliance, if they can only let their guards down and let the wild in.

Exploring belief, loyalty and legacies beyond our control, Nadia Attia's thrilling debut is as magnetic and unpredictable as the curse Rowena is racing to escape.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Audiobook, Fantasy, Folklore, Ebooks

272 pages, Hardcover

Published May 11, 2023

Reviews

[Peggy · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF!!!!!
What the hell was I thinking when I chose this book. I now have a thumping headache .Two bad books in a row lets hope the next one is better.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

[Andee Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this from start to finish.
Politically aware without feeling forced and a story that although horror and set in the future felt real. Exploring themes relatable to our times.
The two unlikely protagonists are likeable and relatable. It's a short read that packs so much in.
It's an outstanding debut novel that I'm glad I chanced upon. Would love to see more from these characters and this turm into a series, but either way, I'll be checking out the authors next novel, that's for sure.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.7

I thoroughly enjoyed this strange mash up of an almost dystopia post-Brexit UK with a smattering of folk horror.

We follow 17 year old Rowena, who's own mother has spent many years convincing her that she's cursed. Everyone Rowena gets close to dies, including her boyfriend and now her father. Her mum decides enough is enough, and sends her off to the North to her grandmother who will be able to heal her in time for her 18th birthday when the curse is apparently going to stick to her for life. In order to get Rowena to the North, her mother enlists the help of their farmhand Halim, who must deliver Rowena. But this is a post-Brexit UK, and all the counties are now governed by their own rules and have their own borders that Rowena and Halim must navigate through. Throw in some racist violence, some strange characters, and some very weird folk rituals, and this turns into a pretty wild road trip.

This is a strange little book but I thoroughly enjoyed it and whizzed through. The writing was sharp and punchy, a breath of fresh air.

Of course it isn't a perfect book - Rowena was a much more interesting character before she started falling for Halim, and their relationship became a little cheesy at times. In fact, Halim's whole character story was a little weak. The ending was a little too wrapped up for me as well.

But this is a solid debut and I very much look forward to what Nadia Attia does next.

[Sai]

I put this down at 44%, it just wasn't the read for me. I was excited for the folklore elements and the idea of this post-brexit 'kingdom' landscape but the characters lacked depth and the commentary within the narrative didn't do nearly as much as I'd hoped it would within this kind of politicised setting. The romance was also unfortuntely a miss.

Thanks to netgalley for the arc

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4⭐️

[Jennifer Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 star review ⭐️⭐️⭐️


This one has some absolutely great settings and characters as well as magical elements.

Halim and Rowena make two brilliant main characters. Though Halim could actually be really arrogant sometimes. Halim makes sure his feelings are known through his conversations with Rowena. They look after each other in this tough world. Their interactions at times could be really funny. There’s things about their background that we find out about which serves a purpose to the story.

The people who live in the town they visit ain’t the friendliest, they’re racist and don’t like visitors even making people pay to use their paths. I did wonder if they was just racist characters or if there was going to be something more because of the supernatural elements throughout.

The setting in this book is vividly described. It’s a dusty and gritty place that feels almost like a place in the wilderness or something dystopian.

If you love books that have spells, ointments, seances, tarot card readings within and getting to learn all about what some flowers mean then this’ll be the one for you! I don’t know much about tarot card readings personally so it was all really interesting!

There was some times it could be quite dark and gripping. It could also be quite gruesome and stomach churning. A brilliant gritty read with a dystopian twist!

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a dystopian road trip story with a hint of folk horror and fairytale. Halim has promised to deliver wayward Rowena to her grandmother's in the northern lands. Rowena is convinced she is cursed and that Death stalks her every move. I enjoyed this. Rowena is spiky but I liked seeing her relationship with Halim develop as they began trusting each other. I found this unsettling but entertaining. Kudos to the cover designer as it's simply amazing.

[Melanie Reynard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an ARC copy via NetGalley. Here is my honest reivew.

I really enjoyed this speculative/alternate universe fantasy novel, with a cli-fi/horror feel. The story follows two young chalk-and-cheese characters, Rowena and Halim, on a road trip in an alternate "Kingdom", where each county has it's own rules, bureaucracy and prejudice against strangers. Suffering each other out of necessity, they are slowly drawn to each other in an enemies to lover type way. Rowena has a curse upon her, which forces her to leave her home, travelling across the country, in the hopes that her grandmother can winkle it out her. Halim has a sink-or-swim business strategy, but really he's desperate to escape the path his parents have set him on.

The world-building surrounding folklore/arcane ritual was subtle but engrossing, woven throughout with a paired back writing style that really suited the premise. Written in the present tense, the narrator is almost invisible and Attia switches POV mid chapter effortlessly. I'm not always a fan of present tense/third person, but for me it really seemed to fit the near-future/alternate reality really well.

I've seen this described as "witchy" but for me it's richer than that. The horror is rooted in luck and curses, rabbit's feet and death in nature, which makes it feel earthy and grounded, unlike other witchcraft stories.

Ultimately, this is a story about the characters. Both Rowena and Halim have built walls around their hearts to protect themselves, but they also need each other's friendship as much as anything else. I really came to care for these two characters: Rowena, stroppy and reckless; Halim, uptight and practical.

I would say this is New Adult/Adult with slightly "spicy" content, which seems fitting with the darker/horror aspects of Attia's writing. Definitely a strong fantasy debut with a literary edge.

[Hanna (lapetiteboleyn) · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book has put me in a reading slump it's that bad. The main character is so unlikeable that I was genuinely just rooting for her to die.

[Suzi Sherriffs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal. A really clever mix of modern and folk, and brilliant characters. I really enjoyed it, I had very few expectations going in to it.

[Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this so much! This book is essentially about a roadtrip where a casual farmworker is asked to take his employer's teenage daughter 'up North' in the land of Kingdom for her to be cured. Rowena the daughter in question is 'cursed' and the curse needs to be lifted before she turns 18 otherwise it will 'settle'. What follows is a roadtrip through this 'green and unpleasant land' that holds a mirror and a warning up to contemporary Britain whilst celebrating British paganism and folklore and yet at the same time showing an ugly side to a British pastoralism.

It is the setting that I love to much in this book. Whilst never named, the assumption is that the setting is in a near-future United Kingdom. In this setting the nation is Kingdom, and it is largely cut off from Continent mirroring the United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union and cut itself off intentionally. Rising sea levels from climate change have changed the landscape and the shape of the island is no longer recognisable. What remains is a system of counties (mirroring English shires) but in these counties they have hard borders. Armed guards check passports crossing county lines and there are long queues, typified by racism, petty bureaucracy and officialdom. One needs to have a guarantee of a job to cross a county line which takes the current British obsession with borders into a ridiculous spiteful farce. Indeed, the only people crossing the borders tend to be migrant workers doing the transport work and the manual work. One can't help see the parallels to contemporary Britain.

Whilst there is a sense that there is wealth, and presumably towns and cities they are invisible in the book. It is as though they exist elsewhere, or are part of an imagination or a history long gone. The places our characters meet are more like little villages, but with enough familiarity to jolt you into it's relationship to today, such as the presence of Chinese take-away shops. In the Counties, it appears the populace have been reduced to vassals in the service of local Lords who own all the land, and most people seem to work on casual short term contracts - hired and fired by mobile phone applications and 'Uber-style' ratings impacting your chances of employment. The inference of an increasingly wealthy propertied Landlord class juxtaposed with a working class just surviving on day to day employment contracts again may be a little on the nose but is a scathing critique of Britain today and where we are heading. Rich people exist in the book, but when encountered they are lazy, wasteful, reckless without a care. There is also a sense of a far northern place called the Wasteland which is lawless. It is both a 'Here be Dragons' place but also a place where possibility exists free of the borders of Kingdom. I am guessing it is our future Scotland and perhaps an analogy to it's independence and move away from the obsessive borders of Kingdom?

The working class have essentially split into two - a migrant transient class who barely feature, and the white working class who are a rural class mostly working off the land (horses have largely replaced cars as a mode of transport). Food is scarce so growing one's own and poaching are the order of the day. The health system has broken down (it's still accessible to the rich but when I read this I couldn't help of the lies about the Brexit campaign to fund the NHS and how Attia exposes this). As a consequence, people rely on 'healers' for medical care which are akin to herbalists, witchcraft and folklore practitioners. Every town and village has a healer.

So because modernity has failed the people of Kingdom they look back, to the stories that where once known to all, to pagan festivals and rituals that once gave meaning to the people. I LOVE how this treatment of folklore in the novel is handled. A lot of love and research has gone into this. The practices feel familiar, are rooted in old tales and not only what may have been but also reinterpretations of paganism. Spells and curses and wishes are real. Omens warn of the future and the turn of a Tarot card has reverential significance. And yet, if this book had a 'pleasant' or 'fluffy' treatment of folklore it still would have been good but would have missed something important.

What this book does is explore the nature of fascism to a pastoral past. Fascists whether in Nazi Germany or in the social media posts of 'the good old days' or even Trump's MAGA all tell a similar story. That life was better in the past. Before modernity. Before people of colour were considered human. A time of white supremacy and patriarchy. A time of hard work and family, a time of subservience to the husband, the Lord, to a god. The British folklore movement in recent years has done an excellent job of cleansing fascist infiltration into pagan and folkloric spaces. It's not perfect but the folklore communities interest in the past and the stories we tell about our culture and who we are has fought hard to reflect and be inclusive whilst recognising that this wistful looking back to a 'whiter' time has immense appeal to fascists.

In this book, each town or village our characters meet seems to have an ongoing festival (Rowena and Halim are travelling around Beltane) so what the book does is take these recognisable folklore traditions and make them ugly. They look beautiful and pretty to the reader at first glance, like a scene from a quaint village fete, but underneath there is a pervading insular perspective. A hatred of the outsider, a need to keep out. This is often reflected back in the ways that villagers treat Halim, Rowena's driver who is of North African descent.

I loved the little references to real folkloric tradition (there is even a reference to a Morris troupe based near where I live who controversially don blackface), even taking elements of their name. It helps us understand what can be nourishing to the 'in-group' to protect a community, can be horrific to the outsider, and often dangerous.

I also liked the characters of Rowena and Halim. Halim I guess is a little bit wooden in places. He seems a little older than he is at first because he is depicted as a worker but he is a few weeks off his 21st birthday. It quickly becomes evident that he is a rich kid who is choosing to leave his family and it's notable with how much racist demeaning shit he experiences effectively by choice. He's also incredibly troubled and hurt and emotionally distant with a rage inside him. There is an intentional ugly perspective in the book of the perceived threat of a brown man with a white teenager. A racist undertone that is familiar to anyone in Britain. His skin colour makes him a threat more than his gender.

Rowena on the other hand is a few weeks away from her 18th birthday. She genuinely believes she is cursed and is responsible for the death of her boyfriend and father. Her relationship with her mother is in tatters, although it is through her mother's pagan and folklore beliefs that Rowena has come to understand the world. I have seen a few reviews where people hate Rowena and I get it. She isn't likeable in a conventional sense. She can be rude and insincere. She can be selfish and inconsiderate. She can also be incredibly reckless and stupid. I think it is these character faults that make me appreciate her. I love her connection to her spirituality and how she understands the world through signs rather than herself. I love her cockiness and brashness which hides a teenager's insecurity and anxiety. I love that she isn't a Mary Sue and is instead incredibly flawed. I love the fact that she will drag Halim places he doesn't want to go, because she'll drink and smoke and take drugs like a teenager. She'll be surly and sulky and yet will dance by a bonfire with abandon. She's aware of the power of her sexuality and also the tensions that exist within her - a need to be cared for, to be safe, to not taken advantage of. She's a subversion of the Maiden (indeed the same could be said of her Mother and Grandmother as aspects of the Mother and the Crone but I will be getting into spoiler territory here). I love the tension between her own self-doubt and also her body positivity.

In short, Rowena reminds me of people I used to date and be attracted to. Free spirits who dared to live in the moment. The kind of teenager who could be a monumental pain in the ass but you'd never leave their orbit. The kind of teenager I'd have been instantly drawn to at that age but now in middle age would leave me awake with 'overly concerned parental and patriarchal worry'. When I was reading this I found myself reminiscing and remembered fucking on a riverbank on a summer's night or dancing till dawn by a campfire whilst loved up on ecstasy, of having a lifetime's relationship in the span of one chemically induced night. Maybe I am getting old but Rowena and Halim are difficult and dislikeable and whilst there is definite character growth they never quite shake these flaws. They are beautifully imperfect like the young person I once was.

The actual plot is relatively linear with Halim driving the truck north to try and deliver Rowena in time for her birthday with various scrapes along the way as they encounter villages in different counties. It's a never ending knife edge because Halim needs to work his way north to pay for his truck. The folk horror vibes are strong both in the overall vibe of how the characters interact with the customs and landscape, there is an unsettling level of threat to Rowena and Halim throughout - mostly based on Rowena's gender and Halim's race. Rowena and Halim's relationship to each other grows and they understand each other. This element is telegraphed pretty strongly. I also worked out the nature of Rowena's healing quite early but the novel moves quickly in escalation of it's horror elements. Upon reflection, the plot is a little thin but the characters interaction with each other and the setting makes this well worth reading.

Very highly recommended

[Leanne Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

I honestly can’t decide if I enjoyed this book or not. I didn’t not enjoy it, I liked the two MC’s and the story really had it’s moments. It just never grabbed me, I was never unable to put it down. I’ve seen about it being a horror? I definitely would not call it that.

[Natali 'Tali' · Rating 4 out of 5]

This dystopian book blends magical realism elements, along with English folklore to create a truly unique book! We follow Rowena in a dystopian England (think Brexit vibes), each county runs itself, and superstition and folk remedies are now the norms (serious Whicker Man vibes). Leading up to her birthday, Rowena is running out of time to cure her curse or risk it settling into place forever. As a last resort, her mother spends her savings sending Rowena to her grandmother's to cleanse the curse away.

Halim is a farmhand with a mysterious past who is hiding from something he doesn't want to talk about. Escorting Rowena across the country seems like an easy job, perfect to fill his savings ready for the next step in his plan. However, he doesn't plan on starting to see the world as she does, learning to let go a little, and stray from his 'by the book' vision.

This is a debut by Nadia Attia' and she is certainly someone I will be watching in the future. Her writing has a quality that reflects the wayward, folk, midsummer of her story, capturing the beauty of English folk stories, and all the best Folk Horror Britain has to offer!


**Thank you to Netgalley and Serpent's Tail for allowing me to read this book. All thoughts are my honest opinions.**

[Catherine Clapperton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adored this dark and mystical tale of greif, love, fear, death, bravery and youth.

Rowena and Halim are both young adults, finding themselves for different reasons. Both wishing to break free of the confines or even curses, of their regular lives.

Both are reaching milestone birthdays (Rowena is almost 18 and Halim, 21) which adds an urgency to their desire to head out on their own paths.

I love that this story shows the importance of trusting your instinct and reaffirms that although there is along course, evil in the world, there is also a lot of good. Whilst it's often difficult and may not work out as planned, we always have the choice to alter our paths and not just become passive bystanders in our own lives.

There are plenty of tense moments as well as tenderness, peril, humour and romance. All sprinkled with perfect witchy, Beltane atmosphere.

Rowena's confident, feisty and carefree nature make her a protagonist we root for.

Fabulous!

[Carly Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was nothing like I imagined it to be from the blurb! I was immersed in the storyline and couldn’t have predicted what was going to happen if I tried. Loved the ominous underlying presence in this book of the curse….. or is it?
The author knows her onions when it comes to pagan traditions and the old ways. Kingdom was a terrifying place, one you could albeit imagine could become a reality here in the UK 😅
Brilliant horror for the spring/summer, I found myself stunned at certain points in the book at what had taken place.
Halim and Rowena are actually characters you care for and want to make it through. You really get to see who they are as individuals.
I fell asleep after reading this one night only to dream I was Rowena and tied up in the storyline so it definitely had a big impact on my tiny brain 😂
Surpassed my expectations in every way, this would make an excellent film!

[F Begum · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5
The premise is unique but the two main characters fell flat. Halim was okay, a bit forgettable if anything, while Rowena was pretty much unlikeable for the most part.

The first and final quarters of the story were most interesting but the portion focused on the journey was just a bit slow.

Overall, the book is written well and built on an interesting concept but it may have kept my attention with fewer characters in that middle section to allow for more depth in the main two. Or if the side characters felt more relevant to the overall plot.

[Miss J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very different from my normal reads (I did a classic bought-because-I-liked-the-cover!) but I'm so glad I did read it. Reminded me of Midsommar a bit but with more light and dark and I started out not liking the lead characters but by the end I was totally in love with them and desperate for them to succeed! Would recommend

[AitziST · Rating 3 out of 5]

(I received this book from the editor and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review)

Rowena is cursed. The day she was born, more than two hundred birds fell from the sky, as if someone had turned them into stone. Then, the misfortunes started. And now, her only salvation may be in Culcrith, to the North. And the Wilderness waits for its chance…
When I started reading this debut novel by Nadia Attia, I was sure, I suppose due to the ‘curse’ and ‘omen’ stuff, that I was, if not in another land, at least in another time. Then, I was convinced that Rowena and Halim, our other main character, were travelling by carriage or something like that. Then, they called each other in their phones. And they were in a hotel. Wait, what? And I was wondering what on earth was going on. So, I started reading it again and realized how influenced I was with what I was expecting.
Once I stroke a kind of compromise between the folk horror and the actual period (I am not going to say which period it is, by the way), I thought I was ready for the journey.
And then, after some more pages, I realized I was dreading any time Rowena was in focus, because she felt like what they are nowadays calling a ‘Pick Me Girl’: someone who thinks she is not like the other girls, and is adamant to show it to everyone around her (even the reader). I understand that not all protagonists need to be likeable, and that I could be biased, but she really does take some decisions and acts in a such a way that it does not really make sense to me.
I do like Halim, though. I can’t say a lot about him (the same way I would like to add some things about Rowena that I can’t because of spoiler-zone), but he is somehow a more complex character than her. On the other hand, I also think he looks better than he really is if the only other characters we can compare him to are Rowena and her family.
On a more positive note, I loved, loved, loved some of the descriptions! I think the creation of the world and the way the author describes it are definitely the most interesting part of Verge. It is easy to feel that the work surrounding the worldbuilding was a thorough one.
To sum up, I know this was not the book for me. I just reread my own review and realized most of the points I did not like (even the ones I did not write about) could be just what a younger audience craves. It simply might be due to these YA themes, or the lack of a more established horror, that I feel something is missing, but at the same time I can assess that this is a promising debut novel and I am looking forward to seeing how the author evolves.
(I received this book from the editor and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review)

[Sarah Tinsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I interviewed the author, you can check it out here: https://sarahtinsley.com/post/folklor...

This debut novel is just brilliant. It's a dystopia that takes us to a post-Brexit Britain that is gorgeously medieval. Attia has unearthed folklore and myth from the English hills, along with some unpleasant superstitions and prejudices.

The book also has great characters. The stroppy Rowena who is fierce and passionate, followed by a dark curse that she is on a journey to try and heal. Halim is kind but conflicted, taking on the job of transporting Rowena across hazardous country in order to make money to get freedom from his parents. The dynamic between them is jaggedly drawn, with lovely clipped dialogue and description. I particularly enjoyed the description of festivals and traditions. I like how she re-connected communities to the earth around them. There were many dark and disturbing moments, showing how insular thinking can lead to hatred and suspicion, and I like that we got to see all the range of human nature in this fascinating and compelling novel.

[Robert Kirkup · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved this folk horror journey through a post-Brexit United "Kingdom" (the word 'Brexit' is never used, and the politics of the novel remain in the background). The opening, expository chapter nearly put me off - no need to dump so much information so early on, and the beginning would have had more energy and mystery if it had opened with the journey already in progress. Aside from the occasional clumsy phrase, though (a few times a character's motivation is stated outright when actions would have said it all), I was completely hooked. Loved the characters, who felt real and relatable, the world building and thought put into how our country would look and feel if old folk traditions were brought back into the microcosm of Britain's 21st century political isolation. I do wonder what the original ending of the novel would have been, though, as hinted at in Attia's acknowledgements. I won't spoil anything but, although I liked it, there was an element of something unfinished that I couldn't put my finger on.

I would highly recommend this. An excellent debut novel, and I'll look forward to her next one.

[Vickiec192 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why, why, why did I keep this on my TBR for so long! It is an absolute gem.of a book, and I devoured it in a day!
From the day Rowena was born she was cursed. Death follows her every move, including the death of her Dad who dies in front of her. Her mum says the only way to save Rowena is to send her to her grandmother who is a known healer, and rid her of the curse before her 18th birthday, after that, the curse will stick for life. Her mum enlists the help of the farm hand, Halim, to take Rowena across the country to be healed. A surly young man with no time for the rebellious girl, who seems to be going out of her way to cause chaos. Halim has issues of his own, and Rowena's lack of sympathy for anyone but herself is infuriating.
As their journey progresses, Rowena's dreams and visions become increasingly disturbing. She finds warnings and death everywhere and the curse tightening its grip.
A wonderful mix of folklore and gothic imagery. This book needs to be read!!!!

[Lou · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really refreshing dystopian read with a satisfying twist. A few weeks have passed and I am still thinking about Verge. The characters and setting had me completely absorbed. Protagonists Rowena and Halim are thrown together, navigating their way through a surprisingly realistic contemporary dystopian Britain. Folklore, ritual and superstition are ingrained in the fabric of this fragile society, where racism is rife and travel between counties fraught with danger. I'm not sure how, but the author manages to tell a story that is simultaneously gentle, violent, mysterious, romantic, mundane and horrifying too. But so believable! Verge explores themes like cultural identity, family legacy, teen angst and the occult. But it also celebrates the beauty and power of nature - and our spiritual connection to the landscapes that shape us.

[Charlotte Mylifeinbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rowena was cursed at birth by Death, when her father and boyfriend both die within a short time period, her mother sends her away. There’s only one person who can lift this curse and that’s Rowena’s Nan, a healer who lives in the North. Rowena embarks on a journey to the North with Halim who has been employed to get Rowena to her Nan safely.

If I was to sum this book up I’d describe it as a dystopian folktale that is alike to a modern day Stardust by Neil Gaiman. It’s set in a broken Britain with pagan vibes, yet it’s been brought into the 21st century through language and technology. I really enjoyed this one, I loved the folklore vibes and the short chapters made for a real enjoyable read.

[Becca Stuttard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this folk horror set in a dystopian, divided Britain. The characterisation at the beginning was a bit trite but it improved after that point. The two main characters' enemies to lovers arc was fun and well-paced, though perhaps I would have liked to have seen more of a meeting of minds later on. I like that this was set against the backdrop of a road trip, race-against-the-clock story. The folklore was well-researched and suitably eerie, Attia never gave much away until the very end which was cool. I found the twist in the tale a bit hard to buy at first, perhaps more clues could have been dropped, but it certainly was a good shock, which had me racing to the end.

[Mel Pretorius · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading "Verge" by Nadia Attia. It did have an old-fashioned way about it - the healers, manual labour and customs/traditions. It did confuse me at times when there was a mention of a mobile phone or truck as it did have a very medieval vibe about it, but that was part of the charm, getting across the Kingdom or lands that are no longer united. I feel as if this book is more about the journey rather than the destination. I also wouldn't be too surprised if this is just the beginning of the story for Rowena and Halim. I'd happily read more.

[lucy black · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5 this novel has such great atmosphere. It’s about two young people travelling through a dystopian Britain where the old ways are flourishing. It’s part coming of age, part social commentary and part folk horror. I thought some of the characters and dialogue were a bit basic and the writing was missing something magical but I still enjoyed it a lot. The tone and themes were spot on and it’s a great debut.

[Nicola · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It was recommended to me and I wasn’t sure what to make of it at first but after the first 50 pages or so I couldn’t t put it down.
I absolutely loved the whicker man feel of it and all the details about superstition and signs.
I found the characters relatable and realistic and the relationship that develops between them over time very believable.
I’ll definitely be looking out for any more books by this author!

[Nikki Marmery · Rating 5 out of 5]

Join Rowena, a rebellious, cursed teenager and Halim, the devilishly good-looking 'handler' tasked with delivering her across a divided dystopian UK on a road trip with a difference. Expect witty, punchy dialogue, creepy folk rituals, supernatural visitations and plenty of casual violence. This is a beautifully written, clever and moving story about grief, finding yourself, and extremely toxic families! A superb debut from Nadia Attia; a writer to watch.

[Sarah Partridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked the concept, had a lot of potential, but so much was crammed in that nothing really settled and it all seemed a bit flighty and fragmented. No character got the depth they deserved, no relationships were truly fleshed out, some themes were touched on but not explored. A great world was built and could have been really quite deep and dark, but wasn't given the time with all the other seemingly incidental things going on.

[Annarella · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's not an easy book to review because it's an excellent book that mixes fantasy, folk horror, folklore and a symbols.
Rowena is a strong and well plotted character, Hamin is up to this strong woman.
An atmospheric and gripping story, highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine