The Woman Who Fell to Earth by RB Russell

Book Review

Martin Willoughby

This is one of those curious tales that starts with an odd event, goes in strange directions, ends up with questions, leaves you wondering what you’ve read, but thoroughly pleased you’ve read it.

Tanya Sewell is awakened by a loud noise in the night. On her roof is the dead body of her step-aunt, who appears to have dropped from the sky, causing some damage to the tiles.

The police and fire brigade are called, who start an investigation but come to no conclusions as to how she got there. There are some suspicions around who killed her, especially when it turns out that Tanya is the sole beneficiary of her aunt’s estate, including the house where Tanya spent so much time in her youth with her aunt and uncle, before her aunt died and her uncle remarried.

The dead woman is Catherine Richards. Catherine and Tanya studied literature together at university.

The story then weaves its way through various events involving a now dead horror author they met while studying at university.

One day, while clearing out her inherited house, Tanya finds Catherine alive and well. Catherine is wondering why Tanya is there, unaware that she should be dead and that nearly a year has passed. The two of them, after some confusion about who did what, how, when and why, set off to discover what happened to Catherine and what the sixtystone has to do with all of this.

I’m still trying to get my mind around what I’ve read. It is one of the most compelling books I’ve sat down with for some time, and one I wanted to keep reading despite tiredness. I never knew what was going to happen next, but every part of the story made sense in the world in which it existed.

They encounter nefarious and dodgy book dealers, supernatural forces, strange writers until the book ends up in a scene that reminds me of…. nah, not telling you that. It would give the ending away.

I felt sorry for Tanya given what life had dumped on her and the people she then had to deal with. Police who, quite naturally, don’t believe what’s happening; second-hand book dealers who want to buy, on the cheap, some precious books that Catherine has on her shelves; a dodgy author who seems to have some link with the dark side of the supernatural; a stroppy step-aunt who seems to have returned from the dead; and an online community obsessed with a dead author who are as nasty and troll-like as you can imagine.

All in all, this is an excellent book that deserves a wider audience.