The Fell Sarah Moss

Picador, £14.99

It’s dusk on a November evening and Kate quietly slips on her coat, gloves and hat and heads out into the night. She often goes night walking to watch the badgers in the nearby Pennine hills but, this time, she’s breaking the law.

Kate is supposed to be self-isolating after briefly coming into contact with a confirmed case of Covid at the cafe she works in.

But, after a week trapped indoors, she finds she can’t take any more so she heads out, risking a fine of £10,000 she can’t afford.

She doesn’t even tell her teenage son Matt where she’s going and leaves her phone at home.

Meanwhile, her neighbour Alice notices Kate slipping out for her illegal walk. Alice, who has cancer and is vulnerable to the virus, is also going stir crazy from weeks of isolation.

After several hours, Kate still hasn’t returned home, so Matt begins to worry and eventually plucks up the courage to confide in Alice that his mum is missing.

A full-scale mountain rescue operation is launched but, as it’s a foggy and rainy night, the rescue team fear Kate could get hypothermia before they track her down.

This tense novel takes place over the course of a single evening, told in turn by Kate, her son Matt, neighbour Alice, and mountain rescuer Rob.

It leaves the reader on tenterhooks as the story builds to its conclusion.

Sarah Moss perfectly captures Kate and Alice’s self-isolation-induced claustrophobia.

There is also clear irony in the fact that both women are lonely yet can’t even have a chat over their garden fence as they would be less than two metres apart.

Some readers might not want to immerse themselves in the cabin fever of early lockdown so soon after living through it.

But Moss makes a strong case for social connection being as important as our physical health for survival.

BY