The Edge of Everything (Jeff Giles)

☆☆☆☆☆

I started ‘The Edge of Everything’ in a bit of a book slump. I’d set aside two books in the days beforehand and was generally looking for a novel with that special something to pique my interest once more.

The book opens in the midst of a snow storm with our protagonist Zoe venturing out to search for her little brother and their two dogs who have gone missing in the wild weather. Zoe has had a terrible year, losing her father in an accident and her elderly next door neighbours in mysterious and violent circumstances. The last place she wants to be is ploughing through the snow, looking for a little brother that she is petrified could be dead.

She finds her brother, freezing cold but alive in the snow, and they seek refuge in the abandoned house of their dead neighbours. You believe the worst has come, that the shelter they find will save them, that they will be allowed to wait the storm out in warmth and peace. But when is anything ever that easy?

A mystery assailant puts Zoe and her little brother in desperate danger. Terrified and alone she begins to wonder whether there is truly any way out of this situation. But she’s not expecting the entry of a nameless stranger with weird powers and a body marked with bizarre tattoos. She’s certainly not expecting him to go straight for her assailant’s soul…

What happens in the moments after changes everything for Zoe and the nameless stranger. Rules are broken, orders disobeyed and everything Zoe thinks she knows about the world begins to start crumbling around her…

This was a wonderful book, tight and dense and filled to the brim with fresh ideas. It’s a book that you read in a daze, utterly immersed in the bleak and lonely world that Giles has created. It raises questions about family relations, grief and what it means to sin.

Without spoiling too much, I loved Giles description of the Lowlands, the mysterious ‘underworld’ that our heroic stranger, X, hails from. The rules, the hierarchy, the bleak Norse melancholy. The ending leaves it wide open for a sequel and I can not wait to hear more about this particular part of the story.

Giles creates a great sense of place. Whether it be Zoe’s lonely mountainside home, the wide flats of the Lowlands or the remote inhospitality of a Canadian shoreline, you feel the atmosphere of each place spreading its tendrils through every scene.

The decision to limit the active cast of characters was also a great idea, it made the interactions between those who were present all the more vivid. The dynamic of Zoe’s family, grieving and fatherless, and the insertion of X into the mix creates some hilarious and heartfelt moments, especially those between our nameless stranger and Zoe’s lonely little brother.

My one qualm is the ‘ending’, it felt rather like it existed solely to make way for book two. The true ending of the book comes a little while before the final page in a twist that’ll make your heart suddenly a rather uncomfortable presence in your throat.

Would I recommend this book? Most definitely! I can imagine curling up under a blanket with it howling a gale beyond the window pane, book in hand.  It also doesn’t hurt that the front cover is gorgeous, I can’t wait to get a physical copy for pride of place on my shelf. A sequel couldn’t come soon enough!

‘The Edge of Everything’ is released on the 31st of January 2017 through Bloomsbury. Many thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing for the review copy in return for an honest review.