This was a very unique novel, and I enjoyed it a lot. Typically I am not into multigenerational stories, but I was drawn in by its setting in Scotland and the story of Sarah, who flees after being accused of being a witch. It turns out that Sarah was of least interest to me in this novel, but I’ll explain more about that below.

The novel travels mainly between the stories of three women across time, Sarah in the 1700s, Ruth in the post WWII era, and Viviane in the present era. The novel starts with Viviane traveling to Ruth’s former home in Scotland to pack things up as she struggles with the death of her father, Ruth’s stepson. Ruth’s story covers her marriage to a widower, mostly looking for a stepmother for his children. Sarah is not directly connected to rest of the narrative. She is taken in by a man and his son after she is accused of witchcraft.

Fundamentally, this novel is about men’s violence against women and other vulnerable people (i.e., young boys), rather than really about the characters or the plot (of which there is little). Little stories are also laced throughout describing violence against unknown people, not connected to the main three stories. Still, I enjoyed Ruth and Viviane’s narratives is immensely. The characters are well developed, multi-faced, and unique. The book is very sad and rage-inducing, but this is complemented by moments of warmth and humor. I laughed out loud several times throughout the book.

Evie Wyld’s writing is excellent. She did a great job representing the voices of women of three different time periods. However, I did find the story of Sarah rather weak. It seemed out of place for me, although I suspect she has a direct connection to the the two other stories that is not made explicit in the novel. It was for her story that I struggled the most to piece together what was happening, and perhaps this is because her story is told through the voice of the boy whose family she joins. There were also some supernatural components to the novel that I’m still not sure how to interpret. This may be a novel I need to reread to fully understand the connections between everything. While I was immersed in the novel from the beginning, I also struggled to put some things together, which is why I think the book needs more than one read to get everything.

Along with a strong focus on violence, another trigger warning is for alcohol abuse. I believe that it served its purpose in the novel, but I have seen other reviewers who disagreed and felt it detracted from Viviane as a character. I found it to be fairly realistic, and I think it’s always important to remember that good characters need not make good choices, nor does liking a character who makes bad choices mean you condone those choices.

I would recommend this book to those who want a glimpse into the time periods that this novel covered, as well as those who would like to delve into the topic of violence against women and children. However, for those looking for a plot-driven novel, this is the wrong choice.

The Bass Rock unfolds slowly, and conjures an air of unease; I found myself truly scared at many points - not just of the magic that hovers in the background of each chapter, but also of the violence that Wyld forefronts. At the heart of it, this is a novel about that violence, but Wyld balances it with lightness and humour. I loved how much of the effect of this novel lies in what's left unsaid or unexplored, with threads linking the narratives together. It felt all the more haunting for that.

- Nirica from Team Champaca

*Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an early copy* After surging out of the sea Bass Rock has been home to many. We follow three woman and their stories that all connect throughout the book. I quit enjoyed all three stories of the main character and loved how easy they were to follow. It was easy to remember who's story was who's. The writing was beautiful and breathtaking. I could feel the characters feelings while reading and really connect with them. My favorite character was Maggie I found her super relatable and hilarious. Honestly I would read a book about her! The author did a great job and I highly recommend!

*Many thanks to Evie Wyld, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.*
This novel was not for me. I could not concentrate on the story and did not get engaged in it.

"The Bass Rock" is a story of repetitious circumstances told through several generations. Similar situations recur around the eponymous Scottish seaside landmark. We hear tales of witchcraft, sexual and physical abuse, family conflict, oh and lets throw in a creepy vicar for good measure.

The writing style was very lyrical and bursting with description. Sadly, the Scottish landscape appeared to be always cold, wet , windy and in every way unwelcoming and the general atmosphere of the book was quite heavy and foreboding, which aptly reflected the subject matter.

My big problem with this book was my inability to keep track of the different characters as we leapt from one era to another. Unraveling the connections was a real test for my brain power and I wished I'd scribbled myself an aide-memoir so I didn't have to keep puzzling over who did what and when. I might have done better if I'd settled down to a few big sessions of reading instead of snatched moments when I could manage. I wasted too much time re-reading which got quite tedious, but I think that was my failure, not the author's.

Overall, I would say this is an engrossing story, well-written with an interesting premise at its heart.

Oh my word, this book was incredible. I absolutely adored Wyld's previous novel, 'All The Birds, Singing', and was so excited for The Bass Rock.

The Bass Rock could be considered a horror novel for two reasons:
1. There is a genuinely terrifying supernatural element to the story
2. It displays just how awful living people can be

The book takes place in a specific location, following various stories that intertwine in many ways. The individual stories and characters are so well-established, and easy to follow. But this is NOT an easy read. It is disturbing, but very compelling. There was a genuine moment when I stopped reading to take a breath.

I am still thinking about all the things left unsaid, and the details not disclosed, within the lives of these amazing characters. I can easily see this being a yearly read for me. I think I can gain something new on repeat readings.

Few novels have blown me away this year, but The Bass Rock has left a massive impact. I really hope this wins many awards and gets the recognition it deserves. What a masterpiece. Wonderful.

When I started reading this book, my first thought was "wow, this is compelling." And it was. Technically the writing wasn't anything ashtonishing, but there's so much raw emotion in it that it was hard not to get sucked on it.

I read the first half of the book without thinking too much, but somewhere around the halfaway I started to lose my interest, because I wasn't seeing any plot anywhere. There are things happening in all three timelines, but everything seems a bit apart and I failed to see what was the bigger story here. Obviously the connecting link is the male violence against women, but this book seems to potray all men in bad light, which in the end I found a bit annoying.

The book tells the story of three women in different times, and while switching between time and person can be a powerful tool, here it lead me to confusion quite often. I struggled keeping track of who, what, and where.

I enjoyed Viviane's chapters the most, but all characters in this book are well fleshed and realistic. I liked the strong author voice behind the writing. Overall it's a good book with compelling writing, though plotwise it falls a bit flat.

I really enjoyed this novel and I have a feeling my adult students will be recommended it a lot. There are so many plot points that resonated with me. I especially thought the bump towards the end was powerful.

Wyld's "Bass Rock" absolutely defined by effectual storytelling, however it felt like much of the violence depicted in snapshots at the end of every part was not only uncalled for, but mostly overmuch. The narratives quickly begun to lose any weight and failed to impress or even register on any deeper lever, it just seemed like violence-porn for the sake of further damaging the female characters.

Past and present come together in this bleak and disturbing tale of three women from three different eras whose paths cross in the shadow of the Bass Rock, a huge outcrop in the sea at North Berwick. A young girl, Sarah, is accused of witchcraft in the 18th century and hounded from her home. Ruth has a new husband, a new house and a new community to come to terms with in the aftermath of WWII. And 40-year old Viv struggles with depression whilst mourning her recently deceased father. Ruth’s story is central to the narrative and it’s a dark and troubling one. This feels like a very angry book, angry at men who control and abuse women, where violence is never far from the surface and where women continually, over the centuries have been doomed to remain unheard and unbelieved. The book is an exploration of loss, trauma and grief, and is a powerful and haunting evocation of the lives of these three women and by extension all women. The writing is superb and the pacing excellent. I found it a hugely compelling read, full of insight and sharp observation about relationships and how the world is still, even today, so often centred around men. A great read.

This is a powerful novel spanning several time periods and written as three connected stories. It is written with outstanding skill. I couldn’t put it down, now I have a sleep deficit. Two stories focus on a family spanning three generations. The protagonists are Viv and her step Grandmother Ruth.

Ruth’s narration describes her life following her marriage and relocation from London to the coastal Scottish location. Ruth’s husband has children from a previous marriage; she adjusts to living with her two step sons and yearns for children of her own. Isolated from the community, she forms a friendship with Betty whose niece Bernadette becomes part of the family. Ruth’s step sons are very likeable; the other men in the story are horrific.

Viv’s narration is contemporary; it begins when as a child she finds a body on the beach. In adulthood she is tasked by the family to catalogue Ruth’s belongings following her death. Viv befriends Maggie who moves into the house with her, Maggie is quirky and gritty in her friendship with Viv. The characters are all unique and thought-provoking.

The third story set in the eighteenth century describes the brutal treatment of Sarah, a young girl who is accused of witchcraft. Sarah is saved by a family who flee their village to escape persecution. This is an extremely disturbing story; Sarah’s maltreatment is haunting and lingering.

The book reflects on abuse, consent and rape and the lasting effects trauma has upon a person. This is a challenging read; the violence and abuse across generations into the present are extremely disturbing. It is a story needing to be told and read widely. I intend to now read Evie Wyld’s past and future novels, great literature from another talented Australian writer. Recommend.

I wish to thank Evie Wyld, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group and NetGalley for the advanced copy of The Bass Rock A Novel in exchange for an honest review.

Evie Wyld's writes a ambitious haunting gothic novel set amidst the Scottish North Berwick coast, with its eerie wildness and the the formidable presence of the Bass Rock, bearing witness through the ages of endemic misogyny and toxic masculinity, over which society operates a collective amnesia right up to our contemporary times. Running through the veins of this unsettling and disturbing novel is the barely suppressed rage of what has been done to women through history, the silencing of their voices, the gaslighting, the murder, the oppression, the physical, emotional and psychological abuse, the accusations of witchcraft and insanity. Set in three different eras, there are connections made and unrelenting echoes through time of women's experiences in their fight for survival in a indifferent world.

in the 18th century, Sarah is a teenager who finds herself having to go on the run with a priest and his son when villagers accuse her of being a witch who needs to be burnt. In the post-WW2 years, Ruth has just married Peter, a widower previously married to Elspeth, with two sons. Ruth has recently moved into the area, still grieving over the loss of her brother, Anthony, with a often absent Peter, trying to do her best to be a stepmother to his sons. However, she struggles with her marriage and is unable to fit in with the repressive locals. In the present, Viviane too is grieving, she has lost her father, and she has arrived to clear the house of her grandmother Ruth's things, only to find her little known family history and mystery slowly being revealed. In a disjointed narrative shifting from the past and the present, interspersed with the voices of other ordinary women, there is a stronger focus on Ruth and Viviane than Sarah, although the character of Maggie in the present with her local map of murdered women in the area undoubtedly brings her to the forefront again.

Wyld explores the dysfunctional male psyche that is at the heart of their flawed, violent and abusive behaviours in this engaging and riveting read. Here the terrors that the supernatural might hold pales in comparison when it comes to the dangerous realities and nightmares that women face at the hands of a man, whilst all acknowledgement of their experiences are obliterated as if they never happened or are of little consequence. This is compulsive and unforgettable if dark reading, so beautifully written, imbued with a dark humour and wit, of a timely contemporary reality and theme that refuses to forget and highlights what has happened to women and continues to happen today. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

“There is such stillness in that small wood where my grandmother died that it catches my breath, I feel I am looking up into space or into a deep high-ceilinged crevasse. ‘Hello!’ I call, just to hear if my voice echoes back. It does, three times.”

The Bass Rock is the third novel by award-winning British-Australian author, Evie Wyld. In post-war Britain, newly-married Ruth Hamilton finds herself in an oversized house in a village in North Berwick, Scotland. She tries, when they are home from boarding school, to connect with her step-sons, and to please her demanding, frequently-absent husband, but measuring up to the beloved wife and mother whom they lost proves discouraging.

It’s a far cry from her existence in London, and she still sorely misses the brother who perished in the war. Ruth finds the village claustrophobic and its traditions less than wholesome. Is the vicar simply a harmless, overenthusiastic lunatic? The person she can best relate to is the house-keeper she inherited with the house. Ruth senses a presence in the house, a feeling shared by her housekeeper’s niece.

Decades later, Viviane Hamilton is conducting an inventory so that her grandmother’s house can be sold. As a favour to her uncle, she stays on to keep the place looking lived in. As she sorts through her grandmother’s possessions, she uncovers traces of the woman about whom her own mother has been frustratingly reticent. Viv, too, senses a presence, although she can’t be sure if it’s part of her own mental problems.

In early eighteenth-century Scotland, Sarah has been branded with the taint of her mother’s unconventional lifestyle. When harvests fail and livestock sickens, the villagers, convinced she is a witch, want to burn her. Their priest and his son rescue her and flee through the woods towards the coast.

The three clearly distinguished main narrative strands are arranged in a nested format and these nests are interspersed with short, anonymous pieces that graphically illustrate the fate of women who sometimes make poor choices but are often simply at a disadvantage due to their gender.

This tale of murder, mental, physical and sexual abuse, domestic violence illustrates the ongoing powerlessness of women and children in a patriarchal society. But there is also love and loyalty and friendship, and it highlights the resilience of women who support each other and don’t accept the old lie: that mentality that encourages male privilege without challenge. And a certain odious character does meet a deserving fate.

Echoes of each narrative appear in the others. Viviane’s inner monologue and her conversations are often a source of dark humour. Wyld’s prose is often exquisite: “It rains through the night and all day, but it is not cold. The air is heavy, in the early parts of the morning, like a blanket weighing on us. The loud patter of drops on leaves and the way it moves the scrub around us, jumping off the spring-green growth, weighing down the branches, makes me think of us moving across the belly of a gigantic scaled beast, warmed by its blood.” This is a brilliant read and fans of this talented author will not be disappointed.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday