The Last Night at Tremore Beach

Starred review from December 12, 2016
English composer Peter Harper, devastated by divorce and deserted by his muse, travels to Ireland in hope of healing, in Spanish author Santiago’s hair-raising debut. Although inspiration remains elusive, Peter finds living in a remote seaside cottage in Clenhburran, Donegal, restorative. A promising new relationship with go-getter Judie Gallagher, who runs a shop and teaches yoga classes, is a plus. But then one stormy night, shortly before his son and daughter’s scheduled visit from their home in Amsterdam, Peter is struck by lightning while returning from a dinner party at the house of his neighbors, Leo and Marie Kogan. Excruciating headaches ensue, along with increasingly harrowing dreams. Are these hallucinatory visions of horrors that are befalling Judie, his beloved children, and even Marie and Leo just a bizarre effect of the lightning—or could Peter somehow be glimpsing the future? Weaving quicksilver supernatural strands into an evocative tapestry of rural Irish life, Santiago conjures a truly haunting page-turner. Agent: Bernat Fiol, SalmaiaLit (Spain).