Ormeshadow

Overall, probably a 3.5/5 for me. The writing was beautiful, and it's the sort of book that would probably stick around in your mind for a long time. Recommended for fans of gothic bleakness a la Bronte sisters, where everything is horrible but in a weirdly lyrical and beautiful way.

Ten-year-old Gideon Belman is uprooted from Bath by his parents to live with his uncle and family in their hometown of Ormeshadow. His father, John Belman, tries to make the transition easier for him by telling him the family mythos of the Orme, a nearly immortal dragon upon which the entire village of Ormeshadow, and their farm of Ormesleep, rests upon. Through the fantastical lens of this mythos, Gideon navigates through a lot of farming family drama and tragedy while coming of age himself.

I'm not sure why the most popular genre allocated for this book was Fantasy because it was certainly more historical fiction to me. The fantasy elements were just occasional, almost rare, sparks in the background of the story and doesn't really play a solid role in the events of the plot. The time period of this book is never quite pinned down, and honestly could span any time between the early 1800s to a very rural 1950s even. This caused me a bit of confusion because I was never quite sure what I should be expecting in terms of gender roles and social mores.

A lot of characters in this book were just downright awful, and made more awful in the fact that they are so real. A lot of times, villains or annoying characters are at least a little caricature-ish, and it's easier to appreciate how evil they are from a distant because they're also so un-lifelike. Not so for the ones in Ormeshadow however. One character in particular (Thomas "he's for burning" Belman) was just so vile that I I was getting visceral reactions whenever the action involved him. It is interesting, however, that even for this character, they were getting some points of redemption (Thomas's love for his dogs really confused me, because we/I typically associate animal lovers with compassionate, kind people, which Thomas is most emphatically NOT).

I'm on the fence when it came to the portrayal of female characters in this book. We have two main ones: Gideon's mother, Clare, who is icily beautiful and holds herself above everyone but who is emotionally unavailable to both Gideon and the reader - we never really quite understand what she's thinking, how she's feeling, or really get to know her as a person because we only see her through Gideon's perspective. Also, his aunt Maud, a plain, long-suffering wife to his uncle Thomas, who can only find her place in the family by being a subservient mother, wife, and housekeeper. Of these, my heart went out the most to Maud, likely because Gideon did too, and we are experiencing this from his perspective. He is never close to anyone in this very dysfunctional family setting (except perhaps his dad John), but he clearly had a lot of pity for his aunt, even more so than his mom.

My favourite part of the book was really the whole family mythos with the dragons. I kinda wish that was explored and interwoven more with the unfolding of the plot. It did sort of come through in the ending, but I'm not really sure if it worked that well for me. We never really got a clear insight as to why a major event happened in the ending, and perhaps that was a deliberate choice from the author. I just wish things were just a little bit clearer though, just so the ending would be a bit more satisfactory.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this novella, since Goodreads has it tagged anywhere from straight Fantasy to Historical Fiction. What I ended up getting was delightfully unexpected – my favorite kind of book.

To manage expectations early, this is not a straight Fantasy book. Set in probably 1800s pastoral England (I'm terribly bad with actual era names), I would call this maybe Historical Fantasy. There is a dragon mentioned, but only in the context of a family legend, and no actual serpentine beasts are depicted (directly) in this book.

Young Gideon is forced to relocate with his father and mother from their life in urban Bath, England to Ormeshadow, a small farming community where Gideon's father, John, was given land by his father. They stay with John's brother, Thomas, who owns the other half of the land, and Gideon struggles to accept this new lifestyle that's so different from what he's used to. Almost immediately family drama arrives, as it does in close quarters, and the family drama does not let up throughout the book. We follow Gideon as he grows into an older teenager, there on the front lines as the family drama ebbs and flows. At about the same time Gideon discovers a dark secret he's been unaware of the entire time, a similar dark secret tears apart the whole community of Ormeshadow.

Through this we're treated with excerpts from Gideon's family story, as told by John, his father. In short form, the whole of Ormeshadow is a sleeping dragon hoarding undiscovered treasure. There's much more to it, and the whole of the family fable is really well done, but I don't want to give away any sort of clue as to where the ending goes.

The writing is very dark, brooding, perfect for the setting and the story. It very much felt like a Wuthering Heights type of vibe as noted by other reviewers here. Despite this novella being less than 200 pages, the characters and setting are very well done, believable, and fleshed out. The ending was incredibly satisfying to me, equal parts predictable and unpredictable at the same time. It's hard to pull that off well.

If any of this sounds appealing to you, give this novella a try. It's a quick read, but I walked away from it having been incredibly glad I gave it a try.