BOOK TOUR STOP x RANDOMTHINGSTOURS - Salt Lick by Lulu Allison

 

"A church rises from the sea, a small, solid island of grey rock. On the spire, a spike of metal, a weather vane with the only arm remaining pointing west, as if reminding the sea that it still has work to do. This way. The whole of England waits to be quenched."

The world as we know it is being eaten alive by the sea. The outer towns and countryside are swamped, only a few inland towns remaining unclaimed by nature. Food is scarce and production has moved overseas seeking more land. A chorus of feral cows wander the abandoned land, watching on silently as the people around them try to survive.

Jesse and his family live in quiet peace in a small remainder of the isolated countryside, playing in the woods, growing food, and clinging to the last memory of home they have before they are forced to give in and move to London. Isolde has always lived in London, but after meeting the man convicted of murdering her Mother when she was a child, she walks away from the city in search of the truth and finds Lee, a man desperate to get into the city to escape the oppressive, racist colony he was born into. 

But in a wild, abandoned country, how will they find their place?

Told from multiple perspectives and spanning decades, this story could easily have been confusing as it's largely left up to the reader to figure out when and where the story is taking place - but each jump is crafted masterfully and made it not only easy to follow, but captivating from the first page. We spend just long enough with each character to form a strong connection with them that lasts until we're back with them again. 

Salt Lick is told through beautiful, poetic prose that invokes a sense of connection with the world around you and the living things who call it home, scattered with small interludes from the Chorus - patiently watching over our trio of humans with unconditional understanding and care. 

And while strikingly beautiful, this tale is deeply unsettling - a world where the climate has shifted and the Earth is reclaimed, humanity are plagued by pandemics and sickness, food shortages are rife, the economy is collapsing and racism and segregration have become rampant as people close themselves off from others. This fictional world is frighteningly possible, a speculative not-too-distance future that feels all too familiar and still so hauntingly strange. 

I spent the entire journey in a dream-like state, the story entirely captivating, and so visceral that I could see everything our characters saw on their journeys. The atmosphere was set from the first page and didn't let go of me until long after I'd turned the last one. 

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Salt Lick comes out September 16th on Unbound. 

This title contains sensitive topics that readers may find triggering including racism, death, self-harm and assault.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Lulu Allison grew up in a small village in the Chilterns. She did an illustration degree at St Martin’s School of Art and a fine-art M.A at the University of Brighton. She has exhibited in group and solo shows, worked as a gallery educator and arts facilitator. She has also worked as a cleaner, an art teacher, a scuba-diving instructor, and a maker of spectacle hinges in a small factory in Munich. 

She came to writing accidentally whilst undertaking what she thought was an art project, unexpectedly discovering what she should have been doing all along. That art project became her first novel, Twice the Speed of Dark, published by Unbound in 2017. Salt Lick is her second novel, and she is working on a third, inspired by the Thomas Mann novel, Doctor Faustus. She lives in Brighton.

Image by Lulu Allison / Unbound

Thank you to Unbound and Random Things Tours for asking me to take part in this tour. I was gifted this book in return for my honest opinions.