Broken Ground - A Review
Broken Ground Written by Lu Hersey Cover Design by Rhi Winter Published by Beaten Track Publishing, 2022 My heart sinks. It’s real. There’s no avoiding this. Ma was right to be worried. Andraste chose me. I’m the one she expects to pay the forfeit. My first review for 2023 (and post-surgery read, as it happens) is Lu Hersey’s eco-thriller Broken Ground . I became aware of Hersey following the publication of her highly-praised Deep Water , and her latest novel certainly continues in the atmospheric, mythical vein of her debut. The story centres on the struggles of Arlo, a teenage boy who lives with his mother and suffers seizures. The farm they used to live on is now owned by the hostile Phelps, who wants to move Arlo and his mother out of their cottage so he can turn it into a holiday let. Phelps is also hoping to find shale gas beneath the farmland, and has hired a company to investigate the potential for this by test drilling, which...