Frankie has decided to to retreat to her family's deserted and isolated home, vacant since the death of her grandmother, and eschew the modern, urban life that is feeding her misery. Fleeing art school she buries herself in the landscape and it's wildlife and finds herself slowly able to return to photography and reconsider the relationship between art and the world and herself. Baume had created something really quite extraordinary. Building her novel (though novel doesn't quite cover it) around the animals that Frankie encounters and the photographs she takes of them. These episodes delve deeply into her fracturing psyche, revealing events of her life and her quest to discovery her essential self. Baume movingly examines the power of mundane belongings to spark memory and to build a sense of history and identity. It's an intensely personal and introspective work that is more of a meditation on life than a story, the plot incidental and secondary to the beautiful writing. It is quite an achievement.

Read for my 'Outstanding' N.E.W.T in Charms 2019 #magicalreadathon. Prompt - Read a paperback. Career choice - Ministry of Magic, Department of Mysteries Worker. A book that hits a bit too close to home to really talk about.