Read This: Books under the Radar is a weekly post written by a guest author – often a friend of mine, someone I’ve met on my writerly travels, or an author I admire who recommends three books they think deserve more recognition. If you’re interested in buying any of the books, please click on the covers and give these hidden gems some love.

Read This: Judith Heneghan

I have known Judith for many years as a friend – long before I was a writer. But she was writing from the very beginning, first children’s books and two wonderful novels for adults. The most recent of which, Birdeye, I particularly loved and reviewed here on Instagram. Judith and I are in the same writing groups, so I have the particular pleasure of seeing her work early. We have taught Creative Writing together, and have a very similar taste in fiction, so while I haven’t heard of – or read – any of her recommendations, I know I’m going to love them. Here’s what Judith has to say about herself:

Judith Heneghan is a novelist and a lecturer at the University of Winchester, where she leads the MA Creative Writing programme. Her first novel, Snegurochka (Salt) is set in Kyiv and was shortlisted for the 2020 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards. Her second novel, Birdeye (Salt) came out in May 2024. Set in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York, it tells the story of Liv Ferrars, who founded a commune in 1972 and is still there, fifty years later, when one morning a young stranger shows up. Will he throw her a lifeline, or destroy her life’s work?

You can find her on Instagram and Threads: @Judith_Heneghan or her website.

Here are Judith’s recommendations:

Hummingbird by Tristan Hughes

First up, Hummingbird, by Tristan Hughes. I read it when it was published by Parthian in 2017 and was moved by its disconcerting beauty. Set in the northern Canadian Wilderness, it follows fifteen-year-old Zack Taylor whose mother died by suicide when he was young and whose father is still grieving. The pair have a small handful of neighbours at Sitting Down Lake, and each one has a particular relationship with solitude and loss. Zach spends his days catching leeches for Oskar, who does ‘Finnish’ things, or he watches Mrs Schneider swim in the terrifyingly deep lake or talks to fierce teenager Eva, whose parents died in a suspected plane crash somewhere in the wilderness. Each is seeking something ineffable – something they don’t necessarily want to find. The emotional dissection is subtle and profound, and the nature writing is flawless.

When I Sing, Mountains Dance by Irene Solà, translated by Mara Faye Lethem

Set in the High Pyrenees, this story opens when Domènec is struck by lightning as he picks black chanterelles. He leaves behind a widow, Sio, and two wild children who grow up in the shadow of Franco. This is not a linear family drama, though. It is a novel about a landscape that exists in time, yet also out of time. Seventeenth-century witches make mischief, while, rather gloriously, the lightning bolts and the deer and the mountain itself have viewpoints, because in this novel, every aspect of the earth is interconnected. If you want to imagine how black chanterelles view their collective self, then try chapter four. As a novel it is visceral, elemental, often raucous and always lyrical. Do read it if you are looking for something different.

Twelve Nights by Urs Faes, translated by Jamie Lee Searle

Choosing a third is hard. I toyed with North Woods by Daniel Mason for its extraordinary breadth and depth (more ghosts, more polyphonic narration) in a remote corner of New England, but instead I’m going with the less well-known Twelve Nights by Swiss writer Urs Faes, translated from the German by Jamie Lee Searle. Think the Black Forest, think snow, think folk tales about havoc wreaked by spirits in the wild nights between Christmas and Epiphany. Manfred is walking into this landscape after decades of self-imposed exile after a terrible argument with his brother. He stays in a remote inn. Will his brother come? At 84 pages this is a novella rather than a novel – a meditation on storytelling, really – one to curl up with when the nights are long and cold.

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All of these have immediately gone on my tbr list, in fact I might have already bought a couple… Any here that catch your eye? And if you’d like to be told about future Read This recommendations, you can follow me on Instagram, or subscribe to my newsletter.

More Read This: Books Under the Radar

Lou Morrish author of Women of War
Francesca Ramsay author of Pinch Me
Sarah Leipciger author of Moon Road
Tim Chapman university librarian
Juliet West author of The Faithful
Lindsay Hunter author of Hot Springs Drive
Gina Chung author of Sea Change
Susmita Bhattacharya author of Table Manners
Vanessa Harbour author of Safe
Freya North author of The Unfinished Business of Eadie Browne