On a remote and isolated island off the edge of the map, Mary is searching desperately for her little brother, missing since the day the Tall Men came to trade. Convinced that someone on the island knows more than they’re revealing, Mary will not rest until she finds him. But Barney is not the only boy to have disappeared lately, and the women of the island are calling on all their power, as well as their knowledge of ancient rites and rituals, to find the perpetrator.

Elsewhere on the island, Morgan, the ‘hidden daughter’, is confined behind a tall fence and a padlocked gate, the key of which never leaves her mothers grasp. Living life through the characters in her books, she dreams of the day when she can escape to the mainland.

Snake Ropes is a book made up of a fascinating combination of myths, legends, fantasy and folk tales. It’s a book of shadow selves, buried truths and keys that can talk. It’s a book where ghosts can cross paths with the living, where poisoned hair spreads across the sea onto the shores, and where seals shed their pelt to walk on the sands.

It’s a book of mysterious and mystical places that cannot be explained, from the Weaving Room, where the women decide on the fates of wrong-doers, to the mysterious and deadly Thrashing House, which can be controlled by no-one and which never relinquishes its hold on its victims.

Snake Ropes is a real exploration into the unknown, and I really enjoyed how the author played with our perceptions of what’s real, what’s not real and what we can make real through the power of our beliefs. It’s a really interesting debut novel, and it’s easy to see why it was nominated for awards.

However, I do have one thing that I have to criticise. While the writing style is certainly interesting, at some points I found that the unusual style, and the numerous diversions into fantasy, took away from the story rather than adding to it. It was quite intense, which also meant that it could be a little confusing. For me, this made it difficult to keep track of the main storyline.