Influential book – Here, Away from it all.

HERE [away from it all] by Polly Hope

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A fantasy book set on a Mediterranean island where, after some cataclysmic event, locals revert to ancient beliefs to the detriment of tourists trapped there. I actually first read this book many years ago as a young man when I found it in the library of an oil tanker I was working on. It has always remained in my memory as I found it uplifting in a thoroughly depressing way. You keep expecting some rescue to arrive and turn things round but, just like real life often is, the tide never turns, until in the final pages all hope is lost. A very brave non-engineered conclusion written at a time when such things were rare in popular fiction. I believe, but can’t be sure that this may be one of only a small number of works published by this author.



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