Ormeshadow

July 22, 2019
British Fantasy Award–winner Sharma’s short novel reads like an old-fashioned idyll of rural life in Georgian England, but there is nothing idyllic about a hardscrabble family farm in the shadow of a hill that supposedly covers a sleeping Orme—a dragon. Young Gideon Belman’s life is upended when he and his parents are forced to leave their easy life in Bath, England, for reasons that are not at first clear to Gideon, and move in with his father’s rough-hewn rural family in Ormeshadow, but he’s intrigued by the stories of the dragon and the Belmans’ age-old responsibility to “shelter her and be there for her when she wakes.” Fear, abuse, tragedy, and heartbreak over the years ultimately push Gideon to see whether the legend is real or a bitter delusion. The story is episodic and the episodes don’t always seem to connect, but they gradually lead to a storm breaking over all of Ormeshadow. Gideon is the charming center in this fantastic but often grim pastoral. He clutches romantic ideals as both hope and self-defense, proving his worth to the reader before he seeks to prove it to the dragon. This short, sharp tale is often wrenching and worth savoring.

August 1, 2019

DEBUT Gideon Belman doesn't understand why he and his parents left their comfortable life in Bath, England, but now they've arrived at his uncle's Ormesleep Farm in Ormeshadow. Starting over in a small village, Gideon struggles to navigate new relatives, a crowded house, and work he never did before. As his father tells the story of the Orme, the sleeping dragon buried below their land, Gideon begins to recognize that the history between his father and uncle is no longer at rest. When tragedy strikes, and Gideon must deal with the traumatic aftermath, he turns to the Orme and the tales his father told to cope with the troubles that fester within Ormesleep Farm. VERDICT Fraught with emotional tension, built upon a harsh, beautiful setting, this first stand-alone novella from Sharma (All the Fabulous Beasts) is one to linger over. It offers a fantastical look at family secrets and a young boy who must navigate the sins of his kinfolk, discovering his own path along the way.--Kristi Chadwick, Massachusetts Lib. Syst., Northampton

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 15, 2019
A classic coming-of-age story set in a dark fantasy world of myths and dragons unfolds amid waves of family drama and age-old mysteries. In a mythic England in an undetermined time long passed, Gideon Belman and his parents are forced to relocate from their civilized and bookish life in Bath to the family farm, Ormeshadow, in a hardscrabble and desolate part of the country bordering the Orme, a sleeping dragon whose large slumbering shape is now covered with soil and grass. The Orme is the daughter of a great dragon king who was looked after by one of Gideon's ancestors following a long and fierce battle between dragons. The ancestor, also named Gideon, promised that generations of his family would keep and protect the dragon. On long walks with his father, Gideon learns the family secrets and legends, but in daily life on the farm, he becomes the victim of his brutal uncle Thomas' bitterness and resentments. There are tales of gold and treasure hidden deep within the body of the dragon, and a map to the fortune carved into the only chair at the Belmans' farm, but Thomas has no time or interest in stories of dragons or treasure. After the mysterious death of Gideon's father, Thomas is only interested in asserting his dominance over everyone around him, especially Gideon and his widowed mother. Driven to despair, Gideon sets off a chain of events that will change his life and the lives of everyone on the Orme forever. Although the story of the noble orphan boy has been told many times by writers from Charles Dickens to J.K. Rowling, author Sharma's (All the Fabulous Beasts, 2018) combination of dragons and sorrow set against a brutal country backdrop separates itself from the pack with a combination of solid writing and original mythology. Despite the well-worn plot and unsatisfying conclusion, the novel's imagery and emotion make it worth the effort.

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October 1, 2019
Sharma takes readers to an unspecified past when Gideon Belman's father loses his job and the family is uprooted from Bath to the family's farm, Ormeshadow. As Gideon adapts to life on a farm, his father shares the Ormeshadow legends which began with the ancestor whose name Gideon shares. Aggravating what should be a peaceful lifestyle is Gideon's uncle, an angry and callous man who cares more for his dogs than his wife and children, and who goes out of his way to pick fights with Gideon's father, including showing an inappropriate interest in Gideon's mother. Gideon's cousins are equally aggravating, between two boys close to his age with whom he shares no interests, and Charity, who shares her mother's timidity and father's temper. Gideon's only refuge is the Orme, the portion of land rumored to be a long-sleeping dragon, and his interest is more in the dragon itself than the buried treasures of fantastical tales. This coming of age story reads quickly, with unexpected twists making it hard to put down.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)