Helm

"This unique, eloquent, stirring novel stars Helm, a wind in Cumbria, alongside a supporting cast of humans through the ages. "

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LoveReading Says

I fell hook, line, and sinker for this gorgeous novel, and rather like Helm, the book itself sits both lightly and with weight, capricious and joyful and foreboding. It also gives me a knowing nudge and delights in my inability to express just how wonderful I think it is.

Helm itself is a wind that dwells in the Eden Valley in Cumbria, it may be a little smug in being the only named wind in the UK, yet it has relatives in other locations around the world. Author Sarah Hall writes with a beautifully descriptive pen as she personifies this wind and sets a number of human characters into action through the ages and pages to be observed.

Each member of the supporting cast is affected by this weather system, their stories come and go, interspersed with facts and figures, tempers and tantrums. While each character is divided by time and connected by Helm, there appears to be no ending as tales bleed into the elements, to arise as folklore, archeology, or stories yet to be finished or told.

I felt rather emotional as I read, feelings flittered and spun as they responded to Helm and there were times when I flinched and ached with sorrow as my mind took me further in and further out. I just had to choose this as both a Liz Pick of the Month and a LoveReading Star Book as it has joined my list of favourite books. Soul-stirringly memorable and beautiful, Helm heals as it wounds, soothes as it provokes, and engages as it destroys. Highly recommended.

Liz Robinson

Find This Book In

Primary Genre	Modern and Contemporary Fiction
Other Genres:	General Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Metaphysical / philosophical fiction Narrative theme: Environmental issues / the natural world Historical Fiction Narrative theme: Sense of place Narrative theme: Death, grief, loss
Recommendations:	Book Club Recommendations Liz Robinson's Picks of the Month Star Books

About

Helm Synopsis

Helm is a ferocious, mischievous wind - a subject of folklore and wonder, who has blasted the sublime landscape of the Eden Valley since the very dawn of time.

This is Helm's life story, formed from the chronicles of those the wind enchanted: the Neolithic tribe who tried to placate it, the Dark Age wizard priest who wanted to banish it, the Victorian steam engineer who attempted to capture it - and the farmer's daughter who fell in love. But now Dr Selima Sutar, surrounded by measuring instruments, alone in her observation hut, fears the end is nigh.

Rich, wild and vital, Helm is the elemental tale of a unique life force - and of a relationship: between nature and people, neither of whom can weather life without the other.

About This Edition

ISBN:	9780571383559
Publication date:	28th August 2025
Author:	Sarah Hall
Publisher:	Faber & Faber
Format:	Hardback
Pagination:	346 pages
Primary Genre	Modern and Contemporary Fiction
Other Genres:	General Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Metaphysical / philosophical fiction Narrative theme: Environmental issues / the natural world Historical Fiction Narrative theme: Sense of place Narrative theme: Death, grief, loss
Recommendations:	Book Club Recommendations Liz Robinson's Picks of the Month Star Books

Press Reviews

Author

About Sarah Hall

Sarah Hall was born in Cumbria in 1974. She received a BA from Aberystwyth University, Wales, and a MLitt in Creative Writing from St Andrews, Scotland. She is the author of Haweswater, which won the 2003 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel, a Society of Authors Betty Trask Award, and a Lakeland Book of the Year prize.

In 2004, her second novel, The Electric Michelangelo, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Eurasia region), and the Prix Femina Etranger, and was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction.

Her third novel, The Carhullan Army, (Daughters of the North, USA) was published in 2007, and won the 2006/07 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the James Tiptree Jr. Award, a Lakeland Book of the Year prize, was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction, and long-listed for the Dublin IMPAC Award. The Carhullan Army was listed as one of The Times 100 Best Books of the Decade.

Her fourth novel, How To Paint A Dead Man, was published in 2009 and was longlisted for the Man Booker prize and won the Portico Prize for Fiction 2010.

The Wolf Border, her fifth novel, was published in 2015, to much critical acclaim, and was shortlisted for The Southbank Sky Arts Awards and the James Tate Memorial Black prize, and won the 2015 Cumbria Life Culture Awards 'Writer of the Year' prize.

Her first collection of short stories, titled The Beautiful Indifference, was published by Faber & Faber in November 2011. The Beautiful Indifference won the Portico Prize for Fiction 2012 and the Edge Hill short story prize, it was also short-listed for the Frank O'Connor Prize. Her second collection, Madame Zero, will be published in 2017. The lead story, Mrs Fox, won the BBC National Short Story Award in 2013.

Her work has been translated into more than a dozen languages.

Sarah Hall is an honorary fellow of Aberystwyth University and the University of Cumbria, and a fellow of the Civitella Ranieri Foundation (2007). She is a member of the Royal Society of Literature. She has judged a number of prestigious literary awards and prizes. She is a recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters EM Forster Award. She has tutored for the Faber Academy, The Guardian, the Arvon Foundation, and has taught creative writing in a variety of establishments in the UK and abroad. Sarah currently lives in Norwich, Norfolk.