Pod : SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION

'Hesket is a moving and accomplished debut which describes how we are shaped by our ecology and haunted by the changes we have wrought on it' Samuel Fisher, author of WIVENHOE'Sara Bayat is a stunning new talent' Bridget Walsh, author of THE TUMBLING GIRLHesket is a quiet community of ordinary people, each of whom are contending with their own private trials of everyday life. But the quaint village they call home has a dark history, and the spectre of a centuries-old trauma still lingers there today. When the threat of development targets the old woods on the edge of the village, unsettling things begin to occur, and the residents must contend with the past and confront their own demons. Are these strange events simply the anxieties of a troubled community being brought to the fore, or is there something more uncanny at work?A grieving parent refuses to believe that death is really the end. A séance takes an unexpected turn. And something monstrous is said to stalk the river... In Hesket: A Norfolk Haunting, debut novelist Sara Bayat weaves a tapestry of a small village community in which each character has their own story to tell. Merging an evocative depiction of the East Anglian countryside and the disquiet of everyday life, Bayat draws on the tradition of the English folk tale with eerie undertones reminiscent of Daisy Johnson, Francine Toon and Andrew Michael Hurley. Hesket is a tale of how loss and love can haunt and shape us.