Fallowfield is a story for our times: an exploration of how the past remains actively alive in the present and of memory’s slippery grip on reality.
The novel’s damaged heroine, journalist Rowan Woodhouse, has always known Fallowfield Hall as the fabled backdrop to her parent’s youthful love-story. Now, mourning the loss of her artist-teacher father, she hopes a research project to celebrate the college’s half-centenary will reveal more about his life and work, and bring a deeper understanding of her enigmatic mother, who died tragically young.
Tracking down college alumni and tutors to interview, Rowan soon discovers that Fallowfield wasn’t the idyll of student hedonism and picnics on the famed daffodil lawns that it seemed. Jealousies, betrayals and rivalries emerge when she learns of the mysterious death of one young woman and the unsolved disappearance of another. As past and present become dangerously intertwined, her own contemporary world and circumstances are impacted more than she could have imagined.
Perfect for fans of commercial fiction with ‘amateur sleuth’ female heroines, this thrilling story has a literary quality and elements that will also appeal to readers of historical fiction and dark academia, as well as those with a passion for art and design. Fans of Donna Tartt, Barbara Vine and B.A. Shapiro may also find much to enjoy in Nicole Swengley’s books.
Nicole Swengley is a highly-regarded and experienced journalist who has written about art and design for titles such as The Times, Financial Times, Daily Telegraph, London Evening Standard, Wall Street Journal and many others. A past student of the Faber Academy, Nicole has written non-fiction books for Collins and Adlard Coles and has had several short stories published in magazines and anthologies. Her debut novel, The Portrait Girl, was published by Breakthrough Books in 2024. Fallowfield is her second full-length work of fiction.
My thoughts: Asked to gather a few anecdotes from former staff and students for Fallowfield art school’s anniversary celebrations, journalist Rowan finds herself investigating the death of a young woman in the 1970s. Her own parents were at the college then, her mother was a student and her father student turned tutor.
As she interviews the people who were there, she becomes concerned that her father, now deceased, might have been involved in the death of Zizi, who had modelled for some of his paintings. But she’d always been told that he had been madly in love with Annie, her mother, from the moment they met, so why would he have been involved with another woman?
Struggling to find the truth in amongst the half remembered past, and one person’s outright lies, Rowan questions everything she knows about her father. But the truth is much sadder and more disturbing than she expected.
A fascinating and interesting read, I liked Rowan, it must be hard not really knowing your parents because they never talked about the past, my mum has told me all sorts of stories from her life, my dad’s a bit less forthcoming, or just has fewer stories. Rowan’s mother died when she was five, and in his grief, her dad, Nick, just never really said much.
But the former students, some of whom were friends with Annie, help her piece together the events and give her their memories of her mum, filling in some of the blanks. I really enjoyed this mix of mystery and memory.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
