I was strolling through the library and the spine of this book caught my eye on the bottom shelf: FOLK printed in an interesting typeface on a bright yellow background. I pulled the book off the shelf and was further intrigued by the gorgeous and unsettling cover—and by the blurb from Madeline Miller, the author of one of my favorite books in recent memory ( Circe, of course).

I’d never heard of either Zoe Gilbert or her debut novel, but the description on the back and many glowing reviews inside prompted me to take a chance and check out the book knowing nothing about it. I’m so glad I did. Folk is a dark and beautiful collection of interweaving stories set in a fictional fishing village (Neverness) on a fictional island, where natural mysteries and myths permeate the lives of its inhabitants. Each story in the book could stand alone (and several have been published elsewhere individually), but the real magic of them is how they subtly tie together, with characters entering and exiting each other’s tales, growing up and growing older and experiencing all the strange forces at work on their isolated island.

Neverness is such a fully realized world that I really felt like I was there—but only there in the way that you feel you’re there in a dream, which seems utterly real until you wake up and it all becomes very strange. Folk is indeed very strange and often intensely melancholy, with imagery and stories that get under your skin and stay there. I finished the book a little while ago but still find myself thinking about the stories, the way you keep returning to a dream that has unsettled you.

“Folk” is the perfect title for this book, which revolves around the folk of the island but is also imbued with folklore and folk horror, and which has the feel of a folk tale itself. It’s magical and I haven’t really read anything else like it. I’m so glad I judged a book by its cover.

Further reading…