Helm

A Guardian, Observer, New Statesman, Financial Times, Independent, BBC and Daily Mail Book of the Year

‘Vital, fierce and free.’ Financial Times
‘Incandescently good.’ Sarah Perry
‘Pulsing with life and lyricism.’ Spectator
‘Fiercely exuberant.’ Observer
'Delightfully playful.' Andrew Miller
'A truly astonishing thing.' George Monbiot

A wondrous, elemental novel from ‘a writer of show-stopping genius’. Guardian

WINNER OF THE LAKELAND BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD
SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE, THE GORDON BURN PRIZE AND THE WINSTON GRAHAM PRIZE
LONGLISTED FOR THE CLIMATE FICTION PRIZE AND THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE

Helm is a ferocious, mischievous wind – a subject of folklore and wonder – who has blasted the sublime landscape of the Eden Valley since the very dawn of time.

This is Helm’s life story, formed from the chronicles of those the wind enchanted: the Neolithic tribe who tried to placate it, the Dark Age wizard priest who wanted to banish it, the Victorian steam engineer who attempted to capture it – and the farmer’s daughter who fell in love. But now Dr Selima Sutar, surrounded by measuring instruments, alone in her observation hut, fears the end is nigh.

Vital and audacious, Helm is the elemental tale of a unique life force – and of a relationship: between nature and people, neither of whom can weather life without the other.

'Sarah Hall's writing has conquered the body and the soul and now it conquers the wind itself.' DAISY JOHNSON
'I can think of no other British writer whose talent so consistently thrills, surprises and staggers.' BENJAMIN MYERS
'I’m awed … I wouldn’t think a novel could be at once so taut and so multifarious, expanding one’s sense of what fiction can do.' SARAH MOSS
'Helm is as vital, fierce and free as the phenomenon it describes.' FINANCIAL TIMES
'A spectacular epic tapestry. Nobody could tell the story of our inextricable relationship with wild nature as beautifully as Sarah Hall.' LEE SCHOFIELD
'[Hall] sweeps from the cinematic to the specific, her prose pulsing with life and lyricism. Helm pushes both the boundaries of the novel and our relationship with nature.' SPECTATOR
'A big, celebratory book, in places delightfully playful, in others as tight and breathless as a thriller.' ANDREW MILLER