People come as well as go.Twelve years ago, Edwin Tully came to Oxford and fell in love with a boy named Marius. He was brilliant. An artist. It was going to be forever.Two years ago, it ended.Now Edwin lives alone in the house they used to share. He tends to damaged books and faded memories, trying to build a future from the fragments of the past.Then the weather turns, and the river spills into … weather turns, and the river spills into Edwin’s quiet world, bringing with it Adam Dacre from the Environment Agency. An unlikely knight, this stranger with roughened hands and worn Wellingtons, but he offers Edwin the hope of something he thought he would never have again.
As the two men grow closer in their struggle against the rising waters, Edwin learns he can’t protect himself from everything—and sometimes he doesn’t need to try.
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Ok, I’m not going to lie. I looked up Horlicks and debated ordering it on Amazon so that I could feel more cultured.
” You don’t really fall in love with a house. You fall in love with the life you could have in it.”
This Novella is worth an afternoon read—anyone who has felt the emptiness of a house and wondering if you can trust again. My favorite part about this book is that the main characters get to know each other in a storm and eat some homemade bread. Does it get any better than that?
An absolute gem which manages to be both charming and realistic at the same time. Great characters that I felt I could bump into in my local post office, who were sympathetic and ordinary yet very attractive. The book is complete in and of itself, but somehow left me wanting more. I loved the odd flickers of wry humour (the 80 year old neighbour saying ‘f*ck this weather’!) and the descriptions of the rising flood waters which felt very authentic. (I’ve been there…) If I had to criticise anything at all, I’d say the main character Edwin didn’t seem quite anxious enough about the fate of his beloved rescued books in the deluge, but that really is picking nits. I loved the book and will happily look for more.
I’ve been slowly moving through Hall’s novels, with deep appreciation for how excellent they are. Waiting For The Flood, though a novella, is no less well-wrought, perhaps more so, because of what Hall accomplishes in a shorter work.
Essentially, the plot develops over the course of a few days (perhaps a week) in which flood waters progressively rise in Oxfordshire, threatening the main character’s house, Edwin Tully, as well as those of his neighbors. Edwin is nursing his heartbreak over the end of his ten-year relationship with Marius, in the house they once shared. Along comes Adam Dacre, from the Environment Agency, and offering Edwin something new, if he would only take a chance.
In Waiting for the Flood, Edwin, like Laurie from For Real, is wounded by the abandonment of a partner he thought was his ‘forever.’ They are both just getting by emotionally. He’s intelligent (all of Hall’s main characters are, some in bookish ways, some in self-knowledge.) and shy because of his stutter, which I initially thought was nervousness. His preoccupation with phonetics in the first chapter should have clued me in to this fact. Adam is probably one of my favorite characters, besides Darian in Glitterland, because he brings so much acceptance to his budding relationship with Edwin. Using the house as a structure upon which to shape the novella was incredibly insightful. I won’t give the ending away but do pay attention to the subtle shift in the last chapter. And recipes. Always a recipe .
One wonderful surprise was the depth of these two characters, given the length of the book. There is so much depth to Edwin’s mourning and Adam’s kindness. I should note that this expression of kindness and acceptance characterizes the relationships in Spires – there is a tender benevolence between the leads, even when the characters are acting in ridiculously myopic ways. This appreciation for the delicate emotion attempting to blossom between the characters lends each story an elegant beauty, particularly when the couples finally surrender to their feelings. There’s no intentional cruelty, only a struggle to love well as only people with histories and emotional scars can love. And it’s lovely to see.
This is a five star read, as are all the novels in this series. All worth reading and rereading.