Follow Me to Ground

A Novel

De: Sue Rainsford

Narrado por: Adam Sims, Francine Brody, Kate Handford, Crystal Clarke, Amy Finegan, Jamael Westman

One of Literary Hub’s Favorite Books of the Year

“Seethingly assured...like all the best horror, [Follow Me to Ground] is an impressive balancing act between judicious withholding and unnerving reveals.” (The Guardian)

A “legitimately frightening” (The New York Times Book Review) debut novel about an otherworldly young woman, her father, and her lover that culminates in a shocking moment of betrayal.

“You’ve never encountered a father-daughter story like Rainsford’s slim debut.” (Entertainment Weekly)

Ada and her father, touched by the power to heal illness, live on the edge of a village where they help sick locals - or “Cures” - by cracking open their damaged bodies or temporarily burying them in the reviving, dangerous Ground nearby. Ada, a being both more and less than human, is mostly uninterested in the Cures, until she meets a man named Samson - and they quickly strike up an affair. Soon, Ada is torn between her old way of life and new possibilities with her lover, and eventually she comes to a decision that will forever change Samson, the town, and the Ground itself.

“Visceral in its descriptions...this unworldly story is a well-crafted and eerie exploration of desire...beautifully intoxicating.” (Shelf Awareness)

In Ada, award-winning author Sue Rainsford has created an utterly bewitching heroine, one who challenges conventional ideas of womanhood and the secrets of the body.

“A triumph of imagination and myth-bending...equal parts beauty and horror [Follow Me to Ground is] unlike anything you will read this year.” (Téa Obreht)

©2020 Sue Rainsford (P)2020 Simon & Schuster Audio

Loved it! Great performances and very enthralling.

This book is so different and original. It grabs you and keeps you interested throughout. I loved the writing style and the performances really brought it to life.

Great story!

And it flows well.
Downloaded this after seeing a Stephen King tweet about the book.
As I stated, story flows well, characters are realistic and relatable. Reminds me of various types of folk I grew up with, much like “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”

TRIGGER WARNING

I enjoyed the story and narration. But - the underlying subject matter is disturbing. There are themes of pedophilia.

I will keep my eye on this writer

A very Moody piece. Like nothing I have read before.
Quite and languid and creepy.

Like nothing you have read before

If you read the reviews here, you’ll find two types: one group states this is like nothing they’ve read before, 5 stars. And another group which mostly hates the whole work.

Count me into the first group, then, because for me literature is adventure. I may not want continuous adventure, like being trapped in Jumanjii, because that’s too exhausting.

But without adventure, what’s there? Boredom. I am a sci-fi reader/listener/watcher for 50 years - most of my life. And I cannot tell you how bored I am of the current endless wave of mind-numbing rants and inter-planetary stomps.

This is different - this was great!!!!!

Maybe audible should allow a search for the most extreme split-opinion reviews of a book. I’d check this out, for sure!

Mythical

I loved this Novel. If you are looking for a book that reads like a TV mini-series or another predictable movie, skip it. If you want a book that touches all your senses and transports you to a new reality, listen to this book. Close your eyes and relax into it. It is like listening to art. The story is mythical. With themes similar to Greek mythology: The father-daughter conflict. The desire to consume and be consumed by love. The continuum of lies that exist in sexually inappropriate relationships. As a surgeon, I loved how they looked inside people for healing but knew that they could never truly enter the mind or psyche. Thank you for writing, Sue Rainsford. I can’t wait to read more.

Interesting premise

I enjoyed the complexity of this book. It takes concentration, though. It is probably one of those books that is better read than listened to, I did find myself going back if I was distracted while listening. That being said, it's one I'm going to be mulling over, which I enjoy. It reminds me most of Michael McDowell, particularly the Blackwater saga. The performance was excellent.

Wow

OMG, what did I just listen to? I am transfixed, awed and amazed. This was a book that tickled the imagination and danced around the edges of disbelief and horror. This book is Ms. Rainford’s debut but I will be following her as an author. I chose the audiobook but it would read well as a book, of that I have no doubt.

Uh, what?

Unique, for sure. What kind of mind conjures up this kind of tale? Well-written and more than strange. Excellent narration. Read it if you dare.

Between the lines

Reviewers always complain, "Show me, don't tell me." This book shows and does not tell. From the first sentence, you are (or at least, should be) aware that the setting of this story is not the world we know. Things with which we are unfamiliar are presented as familiar, and our perception of this world grows gradually through conversations between characters and through the narrative. The science behind the ground, the healing powers of the girl and her father, and the nature of their births are never explained; they are simply facts of life in this world. If you are going to be troubled by this and looking for explanations, this book is not for you.
If you can get past that (which some reviewers obviously didn't), it's an imaginative, entertaining and mildly suspenseful read. But even events and developments along the storyline are cloaked in vague conversations and the MC's private thoughts, requiring us to deduce C by comparing A and B. For example, although a main thread of the story concerns sex and incest, the word "incest" doesn't appear; nor does "sex" until the final scene of the story. Instances of sex are conveyed through sparse language such as, "We met again," and "I liked the feel of him inside me".
With this calm, unassuming voice the narrator leads us into a quiet, creeping horror. We know what became of Sampson. But what became of her father? One moment he's there, and the next, he's dead. Subtle conversational tidbits have set the stage for us to suspect that there is a monster here even before the finale.