Published 25 April 2024. This debut novel is full of beautiful, emotive writing that transports you to a place that almost feels out of time. Based upon the history of remote islands - this fictional island is off the Welsh mainland and is the home to a very small community who survive by fishing and farming. Our main character is 18 year old Manod who lives with her father and sister and who dreams of a life on the mainland, of an education and a better life than the one that she seems to be destined for - marriage to one of the fishermen. Set in the run up to WW2, two anthropologists, Edward and Joan, come to the island to records the islanders' lives and culture and they hire Manod as their translator. This is a coming of age as we follow Manod month by month as she become seduced by this English couple with their talk of the mainland, and it sparks dreams of her actually being able to leave the island. But you also see that the stories that Edward and Joan are collecting, they are being manipulated to tell their truths rather than the reality. there is a feeling that the islanders - and Manod are being exploited. As for the whale that has beached on the shore - its significance, I think is in the title. A whale fall is when a whale's carcass creates an ecosystem and sustenance as organisms scavenge on it, and so I think, that drawn to the island by the whale, Edward and Joan are like the scavengers. They are picking apart the islanders in the same way that the deep sea organisms scavenge off the whale. You feel so sad for Manod and the islanders, but the stories, the folk lore - just wonderful. A very impressive debut novel.

A beautifully written book about a community on a remote Welsh island. It concentrates on a year in Manod’s life - an 18 year old girl who becomes fascinated with visitors who come to study the island and make her question her way of life. The descriptions of the island and their difficult lives really take you there, feeling the cold and the fear of the sea which they all rely on and making you wonder how they could possibly survive year after year.

Thank you to Netgalley for a copy of this unique book.

Whale Fall centres around Manor and her experiences when two anthropologists arrive on the island to study the traditions.
Delicately and carefully written, an exquisite tale filled to the brim with evocative descriptions and characters. I didn't want it or end!

Delicate, dreamlike, beautifully written

I really appreciated the experience of reading this having completely forgotten the ‘about’ of it. O’ Connor shows real craft in the way she drip feeds in the background information of setting, time, characters and their relationships, also the matter of the physical world itself.

There is almost an ‘outside time, outside place’ which I am reluctant to break for the reader, but which (unfortunately!) will inevitably be broken by book jacket and blurb

The setting, which feels in some ways ancient and unchanged with the small island community more deeply wedded to times past than times in its own present, nonetheless feels the darkening future of wider history to come. Again. O’ Connor never overemphasises this, she drip feeds it. There are also other influences which come from outsiders.

In some ways, ‘nothing much’ happens, just the internal turmoils and struggles of the young woman at the centre of this story, but both the oppression, the frustration and the connection to home, to roots and identity are beautifully evoked by the author. She engages the reader fully with her central character, and with the natural world of its setting.

A short novel, but a rich and layered one. And rather welcome, when there seems to be a tendency for some books to overstay their welcome!

Set on an isolated island off the coast of Wales, 'Whale Fall' charts a year in the life of a young woman named Manod and her encounters with two anthropologists who arrive from the mainland. This beautifully written novel is delicate and evocative and follows a really interesting coming of age story, while also feeling like a real love letter to a vanishing world.

Throughout the novel the ever-increasing references to the oncoming war and the turmoil of mainland life cast an incredibly ominous note over the novel and give a real sense that the novel is taking place balanced on a tipping point: the world of the island and the old way of life is at the heart of the book and yet the threat of the outside world is constantly looming.

Elizabeth O'Connor's writing has a wonderful focus on nature and the landscape which surrounds and is so central to Manod's life. O'Connor's descriptive writing is fantastic and I really felt swept away in her descriptions of the island and in the traditions of island life.

Many thanks to Picador for the ARC. I'm looking forward to recommending this to customers when it is published in April

Whale Fall felt like it was hovering outside of a larger, deeper idea. Saying that, I really enjoyed it. The short paragraph/vignette structure felt right for the time period, a time of emotional unease with war, money, and weather battering from all sides, unsure of its beginning and end. The introduction of the visitors did much more to the psychology of the characters and even plot, than I thought it would! For such a short novel O'Connor did so well in making me feel unnerved, and lustful.

For fans of Claire Keegan, I'm looking forward to seeing this instore.

This is a beautifully written and hugely atmospheric novel, one which will stay with me. The island is hauntingly portrayed, and the story feels fresh and original. I devoured it in a day

This is a short but incredibly arresting and atmospheric read, I tore through it and felt like I’d left a bit of myself on the island at the end. Incredibly beautiful and deserves a wide audience. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I devoured this short novel in almost one sitting. I wasn’t aware that such remote islands had still existed so recently and because of this I found the story both sad and depressing but at the same time the writing was so beautiful that it was a joy to read.

Beautiful writing for an evocative and almost old fashioned debut. Wonderful setting on a remote island immersed in nature and longing.

Whale Fall is a sad little story about Manod who is in her late teens and living (stranded like the whale?) on a remote island off of the Welsh coast. Very few people still live there and they try to conjure a living from fishing and farming. A meagre existence at best. Strangers arrive to record the island's verbal history and Manod is drawn in by their seductive ways. It is a short book but it packs a punch. The sense of isolation and desolation is real.

This is an interesting and original story, loosely based on the history of islands off the coast of Wales and Ireland. Manod lives with her father and younger sister on a remote island where fishing is the only industry. In 1935, a couple of researchers come from England to get material for a book and employ Manod as a translator. At the start, they seduce her with their sophisticated ways,but gradually exploit her and the other islanders. I found this book very sad.

This is a gem of a book. Set on a remote Welsh island just before the start of WW2, it explores the life of the small population of islanders battling nature and the draw of the mainland. The story is told through the eyes of 18 year old Manod who lives with her father and sister but dreams of a better life and further education in England. The arrival of 2 anthropologists from an English university appears to offer hope of a way off the island but all is not exactly what they claimed things to be.

The writing is beautifully atmospheric and descriptive and although I found it initially somewhat confusing it soon feels as if you are indeed inside Manod’s head as it wanders through her dreams, the reality, the stories and most importantly her mother’s presence and passing.

A wholehearted recommendation for this book. Sit down and soak it all in.

Thanks to NetGalley.co.uk and the publishers for this DRC in exchange for this honest review.

A good coming of age story! I liked the mystery of the storyline and how well written the isolation of the island felt. Would recommend for fans of character driven novels

Set is 1938, this tells the story of Manod, who lives on a remote island, with a declining population, off the coast of Wales, The world is preparing for war yet the island is untouched. Then a whale is stranded on the beach. Shortly afterwards, two researchers arrive from the UK drawn by the story of the whale and by the islanders way of life. The whale symbolises life beyond the island but as the whale decays so does Manon's love of her island life. This was beautifully characterised and was an emotive and descriptive read which I devoured in one sitting.

As soon as you start with this novel you are transported through delightful imagery and enticed into the rest of the story.
We follow manod and her introspection of the inevitablity of her life on the small island where she lives, and the daydreams of leaving for the mainland. Her growing interest in the two English visitors develops her fantasies of escape and heightening sexuality.
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, short but impactful and woven with folktale influence, I read it in one sitting. Manod is a character you can easily emphasise with, that feeling of being other, to friends and strangers alike.
Some of the best writing I have read in recent years, an incredible debut novel!

A massive thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for providing me with this ARC in return for an honest review.

While this is not the type of book I normally reach for, I really enjoyed it. It is also incredibly impressive for a debut novel, so massive props to Elizabeth O'Connor for this gem.

It took me a while after finishing this to consider the significance of the whale, as it was a theme seen throughout the book and threw me for a slight loop. Aside from the narrative plot points revolving around the whale, the title also helped me out to figure this out, or at least, attempt some analysis. A whale fall is its own unique biological event, where once a whale dies and sinks to the ocean floor, it makes a brand new, temporary ecosystem. In a way, this perfectly describes the plot of the book. A whale becomes beached on a remote island and then attracts new organisms, two British researchers, who then feed on the surrounding area. They scavenge for scraps of information and utilise everything, and everyone, around the whale to get to their goal. Aside from causing some disturbance, they also influence the surrounding area, causing our MC, Manod, to become interested in leaving the island and not following the path that is expected from her.

Without spoiling too much, this book was fascinating, and I found myself unable to step away from it. I really recommend people to check it out once it is released in May.

A quiet, gentle telling of life on a small Welsh island in the 1930s, a paean of folklore and traditions. But the romanticisation of that life by a pair of seemingly sympathetic and genuine anthropologists from the mainland is starkly put to ground by the reality of the harshness, uncertainty and isolation as depicted by Manod. As with all isolated communities, if life were so rosy why would folk be desperate to leave?

While it took some time to immerse myself in this book, I eventually found myself captivated by it. The narrative beautifully captures the sense of longing and isolation inherent to life on a remote island, one that mirrors the struggles of many British islands grappling with migration and harsh living conditions. The arrival of two visitors, who study the island's people and culture, brings forth a complex dynamic, as they simultaneously belittle and romanticize the islanders' way of life.

A quietly beautiful story of Manod, a young woman whose desire to discover life beyond the small island she inhabits is stoked by the arrival of two people from the mainland.
The writing is mesmerisingly visceral and wonderfully descriptive - I began to feel that this was a place I knew and felt quite protective over!