A literary blend of Black Narcissus and The Wicker Man, Sinéad Gleeson’s debut novel Hagstone takes place on a remote Irish island haunted by a mysterious sound. When experimental artist Nell is invited to create a piece for the Inions (an isolated community of women living in a remote cliff-side house), she is drawn into a conflict that threatens not only the Inions’ way of life but her own as well.
Hagstone’s atmospheric writing is one of its greatest strengths. The island is almost a fully formed character, its wail holding supernatural secrets that seem to guide the inhabitants’ lives. On one occasion, the sound causes every woman on the island to bleed. It reportedly also has the power to drive people temporarily, or even permanently insane. Gleeson’s poetic prose perfectly conveys the eerie unknowability of her characters’ environment and you begin to sense that the island has its own motivations. Maybe, as the Inions believe, it is inhabited by the goddess Danu. Or perhaps it’s something else entirely.

Beyond all these folk-horror vibes, the novel is somewhat lacking in depth. Themes of womanhood, art, isolation and power populate Hagstone’s pages, but they are only intermittently explored. This becomes a problem when coupled with the story’s slow pace, and it only really gets going in the back half. Most of the book focuses on Nell’s romantic dealings with local man Cleary and actor-turned-filmmaker Nick, and this relationship drama is engaging, benefitting from the occasional alternate point-of-view chapter. It does, however, begin to feel meandering and directionless compared to the more intriguing drama of the Inion community, with which it never really intertwines. Hagstone feels like a novel of two halves, equal parts frustrating and rewarding.
Sinéad Gleeson: Hagstone is published by 4th Estate on Thursday 11 April; main picture: Bríd O’Donovan.