The Bass Rock

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

The lives of three women weave together across four centuries in the dazzling new book from Evie Wyld, a Granta Best of Young British Novelist

Surging out of the sea, the Bass Rock has for centuries borne witness to the lives that pass under its shadow on the Scottish mainland. And across the centuries, the fates of three women are inextricably linked to this place and to each other.

Sarah, accused of being a witch, is fleeing for her life.

Ruth, in the aftermath of the Second World War, is navigating a new marriage and the strange waters of the local community.

Six decades later, Viv, still mourning the death of her father, is cataloguing Ruth’s belongings in the now-empty house.

As each woman’s story unfolds, it becomes increasingly clear that their choices are circumscribed, in ways big and small, by the men who seek to control them. But in sisterhood there is also the possibility of survival and a new way of life. Intricately crafted and compulsively readable, The Bass Rock burns bright with anger and heart – a devastating indictment of the violence that men have inflicted on women throughout the ages.

© Evie Wyld 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Critics Review

Like Ali Smith’s novels crossed with the TV series Fleabag… [The Bass Rock is] a vividly imagined portrait… There’s much to admire in its little miracles of observation… [Evie Wyld] knows how to maintain suspense, what to withhold and when to reveal it — right up to the spine-chilling last line.
Sunday Times
A multilayered masterpiece; vivid, chilling, leaping jubilantly through space and time, it’s a jaw dropping novel that confirms Wyld as one of our most gifted young writers.
Observer
Wondrous... Expertly chilling... Wyld consistently entertains, juggling the pleasures of several different genres.
New York Times
Searingly controlled…psychologically fearless and…bitterly funny. Wyld is a genius of contrasting voices and revealed connections, while her foreshadowings are so subtle that the book demands – and eminently repays – a second read.
Guardian
A rising star of British fiction… Wyld’s slow, controlled build-up of dread is excellent… Most powerful of all is Wyld’s evocation of a hairs-on-the-neck sense of foreboding when women interact with volatile men.
Sunday Telegraph, *Novel of the Week*
Powerful, intensely absorbing… Wyld is as gifted as Phoebe Waller-Bridge at capturing the hilarious, the excruciating and the absurd.
Daily Mail
Evie Wyld’s tremendous new novel, The Bass Rock, is a powerful and beautifully written narrative of male violence and the three women who endured it.
Daily Telegraph
[A] menacing, modern-Gothic novel... Balancing a superbly controlled sense of dread with fierce anger, Wyld's intense novel is one that will get under your skin and stay there.
Tatler *What to read right now*
Evie Wyld is the author of two excellent novels but she moves up a gear with her third… Wyld’s superbly written…stories mirror and haunt each other in shockingly satisfying ways… Each of these separately lonely women are startlingly well drawn, yet the threads running through their lives are universal… The Bass Rock deserves to win prizes.
Metro
Evie Wyld's third novel The Bass Rock was...not to be missed, it's as good as her first two excellent novels.
New Statesman *Books of the Year*

User Reviews

Book 3.0
Narration 4.0
3.0
4.0
The Bass Rock tells the story of three women separated by time but linked by a village that lies in the shadow of the Bass Rock. Evie Wyld's aim is to highlight the repeated pattern of male violence towards women, and she certainly achieves this, with some passages being very uncomfortable to listen to. The reviews promise a modern gothic novel, but I felt that the gothic elements fell somewhat flat and seemed to be conveniently present when tension was needed but absent for the majority of the book.

My main issue with this book is that I found the jumping around of narratives to be confusing and meant that as soon as I had formed some kind of connection with a character we moved to a different story so that I never felt truly connected to any of women at the heart of the book. The narration helps as each storyline has a different narrator or accent, but I still found myself having to focus hard to orient myself as the book jumped around.

Overall this is an interesting concept which is executed somewhat flatly. Definitely not one to listen to while you're occupied with something else - this book requires maximum attention to follow!
elleninelle 08/12/2025

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