How Saints Die by Carmen Marcus

Quite simply one of the most beautiful books I've read, so full of love and sadness I felt like I might burst, so painful in places I had to look away.

Ten-year-old Ellie Fleck lives by the sea with her fisherman dad, who takes her to school every morning on the front of his bike. It's not a Raleigh or a BMX, just a bike, and therein lies one of the truths at the heart of the book: Ellie Fleck's family is not like everyone else's, and all the kids in her class can tell. Most of them, as is the way with kids, punish her for it.

Set in the 1980s at the edge of the North Sea the story teeters between worlds: land and water, innocence and experience, all mod cons and an older way of life, boring everyday facts and the deeper truth of stories. Ellie has been filled with and shaped by stories, whether sea stories from her dad, ancestral stories from her Irish mum before her breakdown, or saints' stories from church, so it seems natural that in this motherless world ("She'll be better by Christmas") Ellie surrounds herself with stories to get her through. But just because a wolf's in a story, doesn't mean it can't bite.

Carmen Marcus had already acquired a reputation as a poet prior to writing this, her debut novel. This background is apparent in her use of language; I loved the repetition of words like thudtickticktick that (in context) conveyed so much and helped to describe Ellie's world so vividly. Some of the imagery will stay with me for a long time, too - there's a wonderful blend of fairytale and the natural world, sprinkled with small, child's-eye details like the behaviour of a dunked biscuit, and just enough (hedgehog haircuts and ski jackets) to set it in its time and place.

Ellie's a complicated character in a complicated situation and there's no black and white of who should have behaved how, but the way the circumstances are explored (and the way several points of view are used within the book), the reader is fully caught up in the story of Ellie and the story she's creating. It's not an easy read in terms of subject matter, Ellie's mum in particular is not in a good place, but it's a powerful one and it delivers moments of magic to soothe the gut-punches.

Because of the central elements of fairytale and sea, I can see How Saints Die particularly appealing to fans of Kirsty Logan, but I'd recommend it to anyone who can take a bit of magic in their fiction and thinks they could find some fellow-feeling for a confused child.

Here's a link to Carmen's own introduction to the novel from her Read Regional appearances earlier this year: http://newwritingnorth.com/projects/read-regional/carmen-marcus-how-saints-die/