Top new novel of the year, the best in a good bunch, Ali Shaw’s The Girl with glass feet.

I have just read a great new book as a reward for six months of particularly hard graft at my sculpture.

If one is to review a good novel, I suggest the following;

1. You can’t put the book down.

2. It changed you for the better.

3. It hit an emotional nerve or two as all art should do.

4. You are very glad you read it.

Ali Shaw’s first novel would get 100% from me if it were not for the No.3 above which was seriously over the top, but then I have a soft heart and it floored me completely- so he gets an A+ as well.

In essence it is a complex, tempestuous love story, encompassing a wide variety of human family issues without needing to resort to sensational taboos.

Ali Shaw’s style of writing is quietly contemporary and you barely notice it. His fine descriptive passages do not bore the pants off a hard pressed dyslexic like me; I did not need to skip a word.

I might advise my own to avoid St Hauda’s Land but not this book. Read it first, then see the film; oh yes it will make a great film, set in beautiful surroundings by the sea and creepy bogs in the snow, one or two slightly weird characters; it is also a “special effects godsend”. The atmosphere fluctuates dramatically and will give the greatest screenwriter fantastic scope. At times exciting, there really is no time to waste with-in this cracking good story.

Roll on "book two" Ali, can’t wait. I can see a serious cult following here.

www.atlantic-books.co.uk

ISBN 9781843549185

Export & airside trade paperback ISBN 9781843549192