I wanted to start this book with a quote, but it’s hard to select just one. I always have a hard time starting off a review when it comes to books that I truly love. Most of all, he remembers the Hempstock women – his friend Lettie, her mother, and grandmother – who are ancient, wise, and who help him against Ursula and her mischief, and the terrible things that come in her wake. He remembers the horror of that spirit, who becomes known as Ursula Monkton, who threatens to kill him and destroy his family. He remembers the ancient raggedy spirit (the flea), who is drawn to his town by the desperation of the miner’s death, who hitches a ride into the boy’s world as a worm in the sole of his foot. He remembers the day his parents started renting out his bedroom, and the South African opal miner who ran over his kitten, then later committed suicide in their family’s car. After forty years, he has forgotten everything about his childhood, but when he visits the Hempstock farm the memories wash over him like the cool waves of Lettie’s impossible Ocean. Why did we read this book: Because we are shameless Gaiman fans, there was absolutely no doubt we’d read this as soon as possible.Ī man returns to his childhood town in Sussex for a funeral, and finds himself drawn to the house at the end of the lane – the home of Lettie Hempstock, that funny girl who talked about funny things and claimed that the small pond in the back of her house was the Ocean. How did we get this book: Thea received a review copy from the US publisher / Ana bought her copy in the UK The youngest of them claims that her duckpond is ocean. His only defense is three women, on a farm at the end of the lane. Dark creatures from beyond the world are on the loose, and it will take everything our narrator has just to stay alive: there is primal horror here, and menace unleashed – within his family and from the forces that have gathered to destroy it. It began for our narrator forty years ago when the family lodger stole their car and committed suicide in it, stirring up ancient powers best left undisturbed. THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE is a fable that reshapes modern fantasy: moving, terrifying and elegiac – as pure as a dream, as delicate as a butterfly’s wing, as dangerous as a knife in the dark, from storytelling genius Neil Gaiman. Publisher: William Morrow (US) / Headline (UK)

Ocean at the end of the lane genre