Ormeshadow - by Priya Sharma (Paperback)

About the Book

Acclaimed author Sharma transports readers back in time with a coming-of-age story as dark and rich as good soil. Burning with resentment and intrigue, this fantastical family drama invites readers to dig up the secrets of the Belman family, and wonder whether myths and legends are real enough to answer for a history of sin.

Book Synopsis

Winner of the 2019 Shirley Jackson Novella Award
Winner of the 2020 BFS Award

Acclaimed author Priya Sharma transports readers back in time with Ormeshadow, a coming-of-age story as dark and rich as good soil.

Burning with resentment and intrigue, this fantastical family drama invites readers to dig up the secrets of the Belman family, and wonder whether myths and legends are real enough to answer for a history of sin.

Uprooted from Bath by his father's failures, Gideon Belman finds himself stranded on Ormeshadow farm, an ancient place of chalk and ash and shadow. The land crests the Orme, a buried, sleeping dragon that dreams resentment, jealousy, estrangement, death. Or so the folklore says. Growing up in a house that hates him, Gideon finds his only comforts in the land. Gideon will live or die by the Orme, as all his family has.

Review Quotes

"This novella reads like something torn out of the pages of Charles Dickens or Thomas Hardy--a dark coming-of-age saga set in the pastoral, pre-modern English countryside."--Aurealis Magazine

"I love the structure of Ormeshadow--each chapter a kind of story unto itself and yet all flowing smoothly together. If you like graceful writing in your fantasy fiction, depth of character, and a connection to real life issues, this is a perfect read." --Jeffrey Ford

"This is exactly the kind of book that I enjoy. The skillful creation of atmosphere, the touching and painful interaction of characters, the sense of creeping dread, and the sheer beauty and skillfulness of Sharma's prose prove what I thought when I read her short stories: that she is one of the most powerful writers of fantastical fiction working today. The complexity of Ormeshadow's narrative is underscored by Sharma's use of THE telling detail, but not much else. This is a fully-realised world populated with living, breathing characters whose emotions positively seethe." --Tade Thompson

About the Author

PRIYA SHARMA's fiction has appeared in Interzone, Black Static, Nightmare, The Dark and Tor.com. She's been anthologised in several of Ellen Datlow's Best Horror of the Year series, Paula Guran's Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror series, Jonathan Strahan's The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2014, Steve Haynes' Best British Fantasy 2014, and Johnny Main's Best British Horror 2015. She's also been on many Locus' Recommended Reading Lists. "Fabulous Beasts" was a Shirley Jackson Award finalist and won a British Fantasy Award for Short Fiction. She is a Grand Judge for the Aeon Award, an annual writing competition run by Albedo One, Ireland's longest-running and foremost magazine of the Fantastic. A collection of some of Priya's work, All the Fabulous Beasts, was released in 2018 from Undertow Publications.