Debut novel

Set on the the Yorkshire Coast in the 1980s, Carmen Marcus’ impressive debut novel is a poignant and powerful exploration of mental health, poverty and identity, all seen through the eyes of a child.

Young Ellie Fleck lives with her fisherman father and Irish mother who tell her she was their ‘gift from the sea’. Her tough but secure world is suddenly shattered when her mother is taken in to hospital. Her illness is spoken about in hushed tones and Ellie longs for ‘the Before’ when everything was safe. As Ellie attempts to negotiate her way through her confusion, with the help of a little magic, her loving father and a growing friendship with new boy at school Fletch, Marcus builds a totally compelling world which combines the mundane with the mystical, the domestic with the mythic. In Ellie Fleck Marcus has created a memorable young heroine who possesses the same kind of innocent intelligence, forthright self-assurance and aching vulnerability of Harper Lee’s Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. Ultimately How Saints Die is, apart from anything else, a celebration of the power of stories to nourish and sustain us, to help us make sense of some of the more complex and challenging aspects of life. It is also a heart-warming and deeply affecting portrayal of a very special father-daughter relationship.