There's a gentle power to this narrative which weaves backwards through time capturing a short moment in time when Sylvia and Ted lived in Devon. It captures the lives and eccentricities of those around them in the village, weaving a story and timeline that pulls you gently through. ADored it.

'The Daffodil Days' is an exquisite debut novel which follows the last 18 months of Sylvia Plath's life through the eyes of those who interacted with her in and around the small Devon town where she and Ted Hughes lived. To add the novel's poignancy, it is structured in reverse chronological order, so we begin with her housekeepr Nancy Axworthy after Sylvia has returned to London with the children after the breakdown of her marriage.

From here we spool backwards, as meet the GP who stitches back her thumb after she nearly slices it off, the bellringers whom she comes to watch, another guest at the New Year's Eve party she and Ted attends, all the way back to the land agent who sells her and Ted their cottage. Alongside this are interlopers from their lives outside Devon - Sylvia's brother Warren, the critic Al Alvarez and friends Marvin and Kathy Kane, all of whom visit Sylvia in North Tawton, as well as a BBC radio producer. Some of my favourite chapters were those which showed Sylvia through one-off encounters - the assistant in a boutique where she comes to try on a dress, and the man who comes to fit and demonstrate the Hugheses' new state-of-the-art Bendix washing machine: both of these are so beautifully structured and would work as stand-alone short stories.

I didn't have a huge degree of knowledge about the details of Sylvia Plath's life, beyond those which are widely known to everyone - this didn't hamper my enjoyment of the novel but there were a few details which it was helpful to look up as I read.

This is one of my favourite books of 2026 so far - many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC to review!