The Earth Hums in B Flat

Trends in publishing are not often a good thing. Too often one particular book's success leads to a swathe of copycats, all trying to capture the elusive magic of the original. The incredible success of Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time in 2003 gave way to a glut of books featuring highly intelligent yet emotionally challenged child-narrators including Edward St Aubyn's Booker-nominated Mother's Milk, Adam Foulds's The Truth About These Strange Times and Gifted by Nikita Lalwani. Such coat-tailing, however, doesn't mean that the end product should be dismissed - and certainly not in the case of Mari Strachan's beautiful and beguiling The Earth Hums in B Flat.

Gwenni Morgan is not like the other children in her small Welsh village. A bookish yet spirited young girl, she is suddenly forced into an unusual situation when a neighbour disappears and no one seems to be asking the right questions. As Gwenni makes her own investigations, she begins to find out more about life than she could ever have imagined.

Beautifully written, insightful and above all compelling, The Earth Hums in B Flat is a coming of age tale that is both immediate and meditative. With an unforgettable narrator, this is the kind of fiction that reminds you of why you read in the first place.