Fellside is a maximum security prison on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors. It’s not the kind of place you’d want to end up. But it’s where Jess Moulson could be spending the rest of her life. 

It’s a place where even the walls whisper. 

And one voice belongs to a little boy with a message for Jess. 

Will she listen?

Ok, let’s talk about reading multiple books at once. It seems like I’m doing it again, after being book-monogamous for a really long time.

When I first started reading more than one book, it was really just really practical solution to a problem, as opposed to any real desire to read more than one book. I worked for a boatyard for around eight years back in my early twenties. I would take my lunch breaks in my car, down at this little beach, and I’d bring a book.

But some days I’d forget to bring my book, and be super fucking annoyed. And this was when your best way to kill time on your phone was playing that stupid snake game on a Nokia. So, yeah.

And then other days I’d be all set to get in bed to read before going to sleep, only to realize I’d left my book in my car. Also very annoying, especially if it was snowy or cold out. Finally, the lightbulb went on over my head, and I realized the solution was to have one book dedicated to my car, and the other for home. But I 100% abandoned the practice after leaving that job.

Until very recently. With the COVID-19 lockdown, like pretty much everyone, I’ve been really looking for books/shows/movies that feel a little comforting, or reassuring. And what I was finding was that, if the book I was reading was maybe a bit of a struggle, or I just hadn’t gotten into it yet, then I was not at all looking forward to reading at night, before going to sleep. It turned into a weird thing, where I was falling asleep in a really negative headspace (which…well, that’s not ALL that strange for me…but, anyway…) Finally it dawned on me that a good way to combat that feeling was to pick a book that was either from an author I know & love (like M.R. Carey’s Fellside, in case anyone has read this far and forgot this is supposed to be a book review), or a series I am in the middle of, or whatever…just something that’s a pretty sure bet.

So, Fellside. This is a book that’s been on my TBR for way too long, and my experience reading it was certainly different, and will always feel inextricably tied to this point in time. Because there were nights where I just couldn’t focus on reading, not even a little. So this was a book that I just chipped away at a little bit at a time, and it ended up taking me over a month to read.

M. R. Carey is, I think, one of the greatest living storytellers. I’ve loved everything of his I’ve read, and Fellside is certainly no exception. This was such a gorgeous novel. Thoughtful, understated, haunting…oof, I’m really glad I finally made the time for this.

Fellside tells the story of Jess Moulson. When we meet her, she’s addicted to heroin, and living with a boyfriend who, at best, enables her habit. It’s not a good life. One particularly tragic episode leads to a fire, which claims the life of a boy in the apartment upstairs from Jess. Alex was his name…a quiet, sensitive kid that Jess had befriended.

Jess wakes up to find herself terribly burned, charged with Alex’s murder, and with a ticket to a prison known as Fellside.

The story that follows is not one that you could really nail down to any one genre…it’s a bit of a ghost story, a lot of prison drama, and even a good bit of the book takes place in court. And dang, I don’t read anything (not really) that takes place in court, so I was surprised by how intense & riveting those particular scenes were.

Jess is a really interesting protagonist, and this book is a fucking journey as far as her character development is concerned. In the early going, she doesn’t feel like she has anything to live for, so there’s this sense of unbelievable weariness about her. To that end, fair warning, there is a lot to do with suicidal ideation in Fellside.

This book was just beautiful. A really quiet, somber, and haunting reflection on the nature of grief, guilt, and redemption.