We’re delighted that Elizabeth O’Connor will be able to visit us during her short tour, after appearing at Edinburgh Book Festival.

Whale Fall swept us away when we read it last year in hardback, and we’re excited to discuss it with Elizabeth at this event! Set against the backdrop of a world on the edge of great tumult, this haunting story follows Manod, a young woman who dreams of leaving her remote island home off the coast of Wales. This is a quietly powerful novel, with every page steeped in the wild landscape, rural community and depth of meaning — we were transported into Manod’s world and felt her longing amidst a time of rapid change and an island that remained distinctly removed from the mainland.

Whale Fall was selected as an Observer Best Debut of the Year in 2024, who said: O’Connor’s beautifully evocative debut explores the liminal spaces between aspiration and disappointment, adolescence and adulthood, land and sea . . . a highly impressive coming-of-age tale. It was also chosen as a BBC Between the Covers Book Club Pick and was shortlisted for the 2025 Betty Trask Award.

The event will be held in the Book Tree’s atmospheric upstairs event space. We’ll be in conversation with Elizabeth about her work, then open the floor to audience questions towards the end of the evening and there will also be an opportunity for book signings.

Complementary wine and cordial will be available after the door opens at 7pm and during the interval. The event will start at 7.30 pm.

About the Book

I didn’t want it to end — Maggie O’Farrell

Powerful . . . written with a calm, luminous precision — Colm Tóibín

A beautifully nuanced, beguiling first novel, which leaves room for hope. O’Connor has a promising career ahead — The Times

Elizabeth O’Connor’s beautiful, devastating debut Whale Fall tells a story of longing and betrayal set against the backdrop of a world on the edge of great tumult.

It is 1938 and on an island off the coast of Wales, Manod is trying to imagine her future. Her choices are stark: she must either stay and look after her father’s house, in the wild landscape that drove her mother to madness, or marry and leave. And so, when two English anthropologists arrive on the island, Manod senses the possibility of a thrilling new life. But, as she becomes entangled in their work, and their strange relationship, the outside world she had yearned for appears a much darker place than she could ever have imagined.

The quiet cadences of Whale Fall contain a deep melody of loss held and let go. It is a gentle, tough story about profound change — Anne Enright

Evocative and haunting . . . written with a care and restraint that is rare in a debut novel. It teems with visceral imagery — Jude Cook, The Guardian

An excellent debut . . . Brief but complete, the book is an example of precisely observed writing that makes a character’s specific existence glimmer with verisimilitude — Maggie Shipstead, New York Times

About the Author