Helm
Notes
Also I enjoyed a few hours of rabbit holing my way learning about the real Helm, and now I've got a new item on my one-day-in-England agenda: hike from Kirkland Hall up to Cross Fell and back. Probably not something you can do in the teeth of a real Helm wind, but something that you totally can do on a regular day.
ALSO I learned about the concept of a 'blanket bog' - not a thick swamp, but a thin layer of retained ground bog, that can span large grasslands and even (somehow?) hills and mountain faces.
ALSO I learned about the concept of a 'blanket bog' - not a thick swamp, but a thin layer of retained ground bog, that can span large grasslands and even (somehow?) hills and mountain faces.
Noted on February 20, 2026
OK, finished this - and really enjoyed it. Halls's a great writer, and the conceit is great. These are interleaved stories from different times, about different people with different concerns, who are all living in the Eden Valley, a real place where the real Helm wind sweeps down a small mountain called Cross Fell, and creates a very strong, very local wind. The stories span prehistory up to the present moment (a climate scientist studying how microplastics in the air might be killing the Helm!). I was engaged in every one of the stories, a rare feat for this kind of anthology.
Noted on February 20, 2026
Also fun to see that the area where Helm (the wind!) dominates has a place called Kirkland, which I know is a place name. But still jarring every time I see it.
Noted on February 17, 2026
Picked this up because Hall's previous book Burntcoat generated one of those core references between E and I. It's a series of interlinked(?) or overlapping (?) stories that all relate to Helm, England's only 'named wind'. I'm 1/4 in and it's great. Hall is obviously a great writer.
Noted on February 7, 2026
Quotes
Between them sits a jellied gammon and a tureen of anaemic disintegrating potatoes. A mysterious sauce, wobbling under a brown meniscus, is deposited on the table by Midge. Their wine glasses stand empty. The decanter is also empty.Quoted on February 9, 2026
In early September, the last piece of the Revelation Machine arrives, slowly down the track to Kirkland, behind two long-fringed piebalds. Lilith. She has been bought and sent over from Harrisons, the agricultural merchants in Penrith, for the bargain sum of fifty pounds.Quoted on February 17, 2026
[ there's a circle mark at the end that says HUMAN WRITTEN ] The author has created a maker's mark to assert the organic, bio-logical, non-Al-generated nature of the novel's creative composition and artistry. The author offers this as an affirmation of her craft.Quoted on February 18, 2026