This is the second book I have read written by David Sodergren, and another win for me.
I like this author because of how simple his stories are. Sometimes, you just want something smooth and easy, and his books are like this. The 200+ pages fly by so fast.
In this book, we have Muriel Margaret McAuley, who is 84 years old and lives in a small Scottish fishing village. As we know, she has seen a lot in her long life.
From the beginning, it’s easy to say that you will like the main character. Muriel is an old lady living alone, and she values her little village, which has all the old people who were born there and will die there. Her husband was a fisherman, and every day, he went out to the sea, and she watched every day his boat slowly go deeper into the sea abyss. And this one time, just one! Our main character didn’t say goodbyes to her lovely, hardworking husband and went out alone, and… yeah, he didn’t return. So she has a lot of memories tied to this place, and now there is someone who wants her little peace. Want’s her land, her house, everything. This wealthy American developer wants to erase this village from the earth, and he is going to do everything to get rid of the residents. And Lord knows money can help in this. Money can buy a lot of things, but not Muriel, who doesn’t give two shits about his dirty money. So, as you can imagine, a lot of dirty moves will show up in time and push the people of Witchaven to this one decision- sell their houses and leave. But, there it is… The haar (sea fog), and from there, we will have our little helper who will be pretty exciting and dangerous to people who want to hurt Muriel.
As you can all imagine, and as we know, David loves to include good laughter in his books, and you can see it here, too.
“Muriel Margaret McAuley was eighty-four years old the first time she saw a man turned inside-out by a sea monster. You might think it would bother a woman of her age, but, as Muriel was fond of saying, she had seen a lot in her eighty-four short years.”
Or another one:
“ ‘My cock!’ He shouted. ‘My fucking cock!’
As last words went, they may not have been profound, but they were certainly appropriate.”
So effortless, funny, and easy. Really enjoyed this book.