Blackmoor

Beth is an albino, half blind, and given to looking at the world out of the corner of her eye. Her neighbours in the Derbyshire town of Blackmoor have always thought she was 'touched', and when a series of bizarre happenings shake the very foundations of the village, they suspect her involvement. The neighbours say that Beth eats dirt from the flowerbeds, and that smoke rises from her lawn. By the end of the year, she is dead.

A decade later her son, Vincent, treated like a bad omen by his father George, is living in a pleasant suburb miles from Blackmoor. There the bird-watching teenager stumbles towards the buried secrets of his mother's life and death in the abandoned village.

Blackmoor is the story of a community that fell apart, and a past that refuses to go away . . .


Genre: General Fiction

"Ed's voice is utterly distinctive: strong, emotive, haunting. His powers of observation seem almost supernatural. I am struck by the careful, line-by-line craftsmanship of the writing, as well as the bold design of the whole. What I notice is how he sets the tone and keeps to it - it's quite rare to find such resolution and clarity of purpose in a first novel." - Hilary Mantel

"Blackmoor is dead smart and heartbreaking. It's offbeat and incredibly compelling. I love the way Edward Hogan writes." - Miriam Toews