From the Wreck by Jane Rawson
Published by Picador
April 2019
When George Hills was pulled from the wreck of the steamship Admella, he carried with him memories of a disaster that claimed the lives of almost every other soul on board. Almost every other soul.
Because as he clung onto the wreck, George wasn’t alone: someone else – or something else – kept George warm and bound him to life. Why didn’t he die, as so many others did, half-submerged in the freezing Southern Ocean? And what happened to his fellow survivor, the woman who seemed to vanish into thin air?
George will live out the rest of his life obsessed with finding the answers to these questions. He will marry, father children, but never quite let go of the feeling that something else came out of the ocean that day, something that has been watching him ever since. The question of what this creature might want from him – his life? His first-born? To simply return home? – will pursue him, and call him back to the ocean again.
This was an interesting read in as much as I don't usually read science fiction as a preferred genre. However I had heard such good things about this book that I wanted to give it a try to see if I could jump on the bandwagon too. We begin our tale in 1859 when the steamship Admella begins to sink in the middle of the Southern Ocean on it's way to Australia. Only two people survive the shipwreck, out central character George Hills and Bridget, the woman who wrapped herself around him whilst waiting to be rescued. However when the crew turn up, George is the only living soul about.
As the years go by, George cannot stop thinking about this woman; she is always at the back of his mind and when his first child Henry is born, that tie becomes stronger. Henry is not like other boys, and bares a birthmark on his back, one that if you asked him, he would say can change shape and needs feeding regularly. George is not aware of this but this creature is Henry's closest, most intimate friend.
When George gets a letter from a woman who claims to be Bridget, he is immediately drawn to meeting up with her and getting her to release her hold on him, but is she the woman that she claims to be and will removing her grip on the man she saved from the ocean have deeper consequences?
George Hills is in fact Jane Rawson's great-great-grandfather and the Admella really did sink on August 6th 1859. However as to whether a creature from the deep were on the boat that day none of us will ever actually know!
Happy Reading
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