Fray: The haunting and mysterious new literary suspense novel of 2023, for fans of bestsellers THE LONEY and PINE

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So, yes, there is a story if you have the stamina and interest to pursue it, and it is one which you may find rewarding, for in this respect the argument of the novel may be taken as an attempt to distinguish between reality as perceived by the senses and reality as understood by the mind, especially the perplexed mind. During an anxiety experience, or a panic attack, there’s that feeling of not being able to catch your breath or feeling like you're choking and you just can't control it. DNF - this started with a lot of potential and I genuinely didn't mind the experimental format, but the level of repetition in each of the segments made this a huge challenge to read- particularly with the main perspective. Does this mean the father is alive, or that some other person or strange being is at hand, playing a nasty and frightening trick on the narrator? I was talking recently about Haruki Murakami – I really love his running book [ What I Talk About When I Talk About Running] .

Runner's World participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites. I think feeling a bit nervous before a race is normal and helps – it can be quite exciting and then sort of balances against the lovely sense of achievement and the rush and exhaustion after it. Fray can be seen as an active process of working through its narrator’s deep feelings – and there’s cause to wonder how much of what’s narrated is happening in the external world, and how much in the narrator’s mind.

I’m always impressed when the written word evokes strong feelings and emotions; perhaps made easier by the similarities between it’s story and mine.

Having lost my mum and dad at a relatively young age, I can certainly relate to the feelings in this book, and the feelings grief brings.But of course running can seem a bit daunting, especially to those struggling with mental health difficulties .

This certainly isn’t a book for everyone due to the experimental nature of the writing, however I absolutely loved it. The narrator has now traced their father to this cottage – he’s not there himself, but the place is full of papers and maps written and drawn by his hand. But if you keep going - exactly like with running - if you keep doing bit and a bit, regularly and you don’t get put off when it gets tough, you don't give up and you've just kind of persist, then actually over time, you can really put something quite phenomenal together, whether that's training for a marathon and ultra or writing a novel. Along the way, they talk about the darkness that has clouded their life at times, and the ways they’ve tried to cope. One of his hand-drawn maps has the word ‘hotel’ marked prominently, but there doesn’t seem to be a hotel nearby.There is a striving throughout the book to deal with personal demons and come out of them with a peace of mind. A deeply haunting book … The Scottish Highlands have never felt more wild or alive than they do in this … immensely important novel. On a whim, perhaps due to some sort of breakdown, his father walks out after the death of his wife, and disappears.