The Given World

“April brings spring surging with it, giving rise, among many in the village, to a comforting illusion that all is somehow still right with the world, and that nothing will ever change.”

Late spring, and the business of life in the village of Lower Eodham moves along as it has always done. A young man drifts home high from a party in the small hours of the morning, an elderly lady falls while out walking and hopes she will be rescued before nightfall, an urbane GP gets drunk at a dinner party and underestimates his wife, a dutiful daughter receives life changing news. It is a place steeped in natural beauty and tradition, but also divided by the arrival of second homers, decades long resentments, and secret land deals. However, something else beyond the petty grievances of human affairs is shifting, something connected to the old land and the old ways, and what it brings with it will alter the future of the valley for ever. Set in the present day, The Given World is Melissa Harrison’s very best work yet; timely, resonant, and incredibly powerful.