Our Review… Few writers conjure the spirit of a landscape quite like Maggie O’Farrell, and Land feels as though it rises from the mist and memory of Ireland itself. Set in 1865, in the shadow of the Great Hunger, the novel follows Tomás and his young 10-year-old son Liam, cartographers working on the ambitious Ordnance Survey project to map the whole of Ireland. As they traverse a wild, bitter peninsula, they are not simply measuring the contours of the land, they are moving through a country still haunted by loss, absence and great untold stories of the dead. When a strange encounter in an ancient woodland deeply unsettles Tomas, the carefully charted path home begins to unravel. What follows is a luminous tale of fathers and sons and where the boundaries between the seen and unseen feyly porous. Rich with sea winds, old ghosts, buried treasures and the deep magic of place, Land explores the idea that the earth remembers everything. The names, stories and sorrows of those who came before are woven into its roots, waiting to be discovered by those willing to listen. O’Farrell’s prose is, as always, utterly transporting. The Irish landscape feels alive on the page – wild, windswept and steeped in memory. Yet alongside its beauty is a lingering sense of sorrow, the shadows of history etched into every field and craggy hillside. This is a land shaped by loss, and O’Farrell captures both its scars and its enduring magic with extraordinary grace. Atmospheric, mysterious and deeply moving, this is a novel to lose yourself in, revealing unexpected wonders. A magnificent read. Review by Nicole
