The challenges of growing up in Cornwall, the release and power of the ocean, the hope that can come from despair. When our friends at Hermitage Press asked us to review Robin Falvey’s debut novel Fulmar, we weren’t expecting this. We’ll never look at an offshore swell in quite the same way again…
A total immersion of a book, Fulmar is raw, heartbreaking and uplifting in equal measure. In 15-year-old Jacob Penhallow, Falvey has created a character of searing authenticity; a promising young person fighting for air in a world hellbent on swallowing him whole.
Set in a Cornwall rarely seen on the page, Jacob’s is a county of deprivation and risk; a father put away, a mother on the brink, the desperate players of the local drug trade constantly banging on his door. It’s only when a close encounter and an old surfboard leads him to the sea – and to a surf lifesaving club which puts hope ahead of shame – that we see the potential for a different life tantalisingly within Jacob’s reach.
“ "A wonderfully gritty and gripping debut." ”
Tim Hannigan, The Granite Kingdom
Get ready to be thrown headlong into the pulse of swell that is Jacob’s world, experiencing all its peaks and plummets at terrifying pace – as if his story is carved across the face of the same waves he’s so drawn to ride. It’s a novel that grabs you tight and pulls you through, page by page, until you’re holding your breath in the hope that its characters can overcome the odds, escape the cycle they’re trapped in, and thrive.
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Fulmar is out now and available in independent bookshops across Cornwall, Waterstones and direct from Hermitage Press