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Hallam returns from prison to his childhood home – a dilapidated house on the sea-battered north Cornish coast, a place where land and water embrace in perennial, furious exchange, where he ekes out a living repairing nets, the spectral presence of wreckers and smugglers riding the south-westerly. It is a home built on a tapestry of sound: a dozen different winds, waves that growl and pummel, the rark of gulls. A place to heal, to forget.
But when a young Romanian woman strides fully-clothed into the sea one evening, their interlocked fates serve only to marshal all the brutality of Hallam’s past life. EVERY SEVENTH WAVE is a literary tale of the fates we tether ourselves to, how seemingly benign encounters can provoke both hope and devastation. Read a review here or here. ‘True to the realities of its Cornish location and the torque of its characters' histories, this is a story of contemporary urgency - vividly written, morally complex, unforgettably moving.’ Graham Mort ‘A stunning novel of precarious lives lived on the fringes, and suffusing the whole thing, the sea's implacable presence. I found it touching, moving and disturbing in equal measure.’ Wyl Menmuir ‘Compelling, intense, bracing and raw as the waves themselves.’ Miriam Darlington 'A beautifully crafted and haunting book.' Clare Wigfall 'A diverting read, compact and eloquently written.' Irish Times |
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‘The writing is like old magic, working its way inside. Beautiful and searing.’ Ríona Judge McCormack ‘The novel grips from the first page with a sense of lurking danger and characters who have within them the sea's silent depths.’ Linda Cracknell ‘Tom Vowler writes with attentiveness and empathy, crafting a moving and compelling story of love, loss and the possibility of redemption.’ Ben Smith 'A story capturing the dark, ethereal, redemptive forces of life and the sea. A richly written, ambitious novel.' Cathy Galvin |