Here are my first two reviews for #NovNov26, Novellas in November hosted by Rebecca and Cathy More next week.
There is a clear vogue amongst publishers these days to bring out longer short stories or short novellas as lovely little hardbacks – ideal Christmas gifts, and both of these fit that category. I find them hard to resist… (I also have new ones from Madeleine Miller and A S Byatt on my shelves, although the Byatt is selected from a previous collection for the single treatment.)
The Winter Guest by Sarah Moss
I rather enjoyed this novella which comes in at 122 smaller well-spaced pages. Set in a hotel on Ireland’s west coast, two guests are the only ones to make it through the terrible stormy weather for their Christmas bookings.
We begin with Ryan the unobtrusive waiter, overseeing the two guests’ dinner – there’s only him and chef Donal on tonight. The two guests share a table and are making conversation and the story begins:
Tell me, she says, the worst thing you’ve ever done. Bloody hell, Ryan thinks, some opening line for an old bird.
The other guest, you-can-call-me-Gerry but Ryan’s trained to say Sir, leans back, raises his eyebrows at her in a way that if you want Ryan’s opinion he’s practised in the mirror. […]
Oh now, Gerry says, I’d have to kill you, if I told you that.
This opening section sets us up nicely for the rest of the meal, and with only two guests to impress with his cooking, Donal pulls out all the stops. As the older lady, Janice, launches into her story, Ryan brings the first course:
Broth of locally foraged mushrooms, he says with barley and a garnish of crispy pan-fried sage.
Ryan, she says, a word of advice: crispy is a horrible neologism. Just say crisp, it’s already an adjective, they don’t all have to end with a y. And while I’m on the subject, pan-fried is not horrible but it is foolish. You can’t fry anything without a pan. Say fried. The garnish is crisp, fried sage, though arguably the only point of frying sage is to make it crisp so you could just say fried sage and trust the chef not to make it soggy.
Yes, Madam, say Ryan; his training does more or less cover this, and also prevents him exchanging glances with Gerry. He refills her water glass.
She continues to be as picky and pedantic throughout the dinner which did lead me to think ‘Get on with it!’ at times in my head. He drinks rather too much… and I can’t possibly tell you how it all pans out! Moss writes particularly well about the food descriptions – which you’d expect from the author of My Good Bright Wolf, her memoir which recounts her teenage anorexia (Note to self: must read).
Source: Own copy – Picador hardback, 2026, 122 pages. BUY at Amazon UK or Waterstones via my affiliate links.
The Bishop of Durham Attempts to Surrender the City by Susanna Clarke
The latest offering from Susanne Clarke is a story about the Raven King, the ruler of the fairy host, written originally for Fictionable online magazine in 2025, now published as a lovely edition with illustrations by Victoria Sawdon (who also illustrated her previous 2024 offering The Wood at Midwinter. The Raven King, of course, appeared in the wondrous Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and reappeared in one of the stories in Clarke’s collection The Ladies of Grace Adieu.
In The Bishop… Clarke turns to an earlier historical period, that of Henry I, the son of William the Conqueror, who ruled from 1100-1135, so the Normans are in charge – at least of the southern half of England. In the north, things are rather different, the narrative begins:
During the conquest of Northern England, the fairy host moved quickly. Within days they captured Bamburgh, Gateshead and Hexham. In late November 1110, they arrived at Durham.
Ranulf, the Norman Bishop of Durham (born in Bayeux, naturellement!), retreated troops into the city where they were besieged. Norman knights and English citizens had no love for each other, but were forced to work together as the siege continued. Henry ceded Northern England, but the people of Durham were unaware, continuing until February when they discovered the fairy host had ridden away, so they thought, but were actually inhabiting the woods outside the city walls. Discovering Henry’s surrender, Ranulf rides to the ‘New Castle on the Tyne’ where the new king’s court was to put his city (and his own) case and to surrender and pay homage.
Arriving and trying to seek an audience with the king, Ranulf is faced with a succession of people claiming to speak for the king (but seek to control him). Ranulf stands firm – he will only surrender to the actual king, who he knows is but a youth. This is where the story becomes more of a fantasy as Ranulf is taken on a six step path to meet the king…
This is very much presented as a fable in its manner of telling, childlike on the surface, but with plenty to read in between the lines. Sawdon’s monochrome illustrations echo the Bayeux tapestry a little, whilst having a medieval style of their own. Some are full page illustrations, but every page of text is bordered. You probably can’t see the top figure to your left clearly, but he is of the fairy host, having distinctly elfin features and wavy long hair. They really add to the story.
Appended to the story is an essay by Clarke, entitled ‘Childish Things’, in which she argues for the fantasy elements of children’s literature to extend into adulthood – citing Shakespeare etc al. She says:
Part of what the fairies have come to mean to me – which I do not think I could have predicted at the beginning – is as figures who can stand between the natural world and the world of men, and maybe even rather imperfectly interpret one to the other, figures who take it for granted that the natural world is something possessing a kind of consciousness – perhaps amounting personhood.
For me this essay was the perfect bookend to the story, and helped me to see it through the author’s eyes. I do think that anyone who hadn’t read JS & Mr N might be perplexed by the outward simplicity of the tale, but afficionados will see that The Bishop… does speak volumes.
Source: Own copy – Bloomsbury hardback, 2026, 96 pages. BUY at Amazon UK or Waterstones via my affiliate links.