Beneath A Thousand Skies

Summary:

In a house in a wood, Ada and her father live peacefully, tending to their garden and the wildlife in it. They are not human though. Ada was made by her father from the Ground, a unique patch of earth with birthing and healing properties. Though perhaps he didn’t get her quite right. They spend their days healing the local human folk – named Cures – who visit them, suspiciously, with their ailments.

When Ada embarks on a relationship with a local Cure named Samson, and is forced to choose between her old life with her father, and a new one with her human lover. Her decision will uproot the town – and the Ground itself – for ever.

‘I went to bed, thinking hard of Samson and hoping to sew the seeds of a dream; his stomach coming undone, a wide mouth tasting the air, a sliver spreading up the centre of his almond-shell chest.’

I picked up ‘Follow Me To Ground’ based on the premise, the cover and the fact that it was part of our library’s folk horror display; and within the first few pages I fell in love with the writing. Rainsford has an otherworldly way with words, lyrical and stark in equal measure, with a way that paints the world as weird as it is in vivid, haunting detail; fitting for a book that is horror, not in the terrifying, claws on the page way, but in that slow, creeping feeling of the uncanny at work. There was very much some on page horror, particularly in the medical scenes and the body horror was both fascinating and unsettling.

I feel like if I ever needed to be able to point at a book to describe the feel of folk horror, then this one is one I could choose.

However, as much as I loved the sheer vibe of this book, which 1000% tapped into the atmospheric creep that I love so much about folk horror, in some ways it undermined itself. Perhaps, because Ada was our main pov and she isn’t human, for all that she does have human moments, there’s always that off-ness to how she views the world, the cures and even her own growing emotional attachment to them. It felt in some ways, that there was no ‘reality’ to grasp hold of in contrast, which ended up with me feeling particularly by the second half of the book that the unsettling was normal, when it very much wasn’t.

I will say, I found that it worked better as an audiobook. It is very much written with the feeling of an oral tale, or recollection, told around a crackling fire on the dark autumn nights, when every noise and breeze promises something more. The audiobook only adding to that, and the voices and accents used, added a hundred-fold to the atmosphere; and for myself at least I found it easier to track the jumps back and forth in the story much easier to follow in audio.

In the end though I found that the story wasn’t one I was overly invested in. Rainsford does a fantastic job of exploring girlhood and first loves of toxic relationships and complicated family ties, and I found both Ada and her father absolutely compelling, fascinating characters. In some ways I was more invested in her father, even though we saw and knew less of him and what we did know was coloured by Ada’s experience and perception; but he was one character I would happily read more about. However, Samson and his sister, and the relationships, as twisted, complicated as they were, I was never so invested in, and even with how that storyline was explored and developed, and the fact that ultimately Follow Me To Ground was Ada having to choose between two paths, it remained that way to the end.

I was here for the worldbuilding, that blend of folklore overlain on a distant reality. I loved how Rainsford combined both folklore tales about the world around them, like the story of Sister and Brother Eel, but I also liked how Ada and her father and their weird extended lives, and their healings, wrapped with body horror and earthy connections had become tales shared between generations. That very human way of trying to explain things we can’t understand into stories to find the answers. I was definitely here for the uncanny feeling that permeated every inch of this book, and for the language that pulled me in from the beginning; but I can’t say that I loved this book.

Even a couple of days later I still feel somewhat conflicted over this book. On the basis of the writing and descriptions, and that creeping, unsettling feeling that is so perfect for this time of year I would recommend it, and I will probably listen to it again just for that feeling. But, in terms of story and a feeling of satisfaction at the end, I just feel like I’m still waiting for the something more to happen, another breath to be taken, and to be fair that might be the best way for a story that is a folk tale woven into an ongoing reality to end, but in the end it just stops me from being able to rave about this book.