No, YOU follow ME to the Ground

I read Follow Me To Ground by Sue Rainsford a bit ago but I didn't know what to say about it because I had no idea what I had just read. I still don't, really, but I'm going to blather on about it anyways.

This was the first book in Jenny Lawson's Fantastic Strangelings Book Club. Of course, I signed up to get the books because 1) I love Jenny and 2) I knew her taste in books would be all over the place and awesome.

Fantastic Strangelings Book Club sign up

Fantastic Strangelings FB page (all welcome to chime in!)

The cool part about the book club is....this book is signed by Sue. :)

I have to talk about this book now, in a way that makes you want to go read it. I know this is going to sound all weird and gibberish, so just go read it.

Follow Me To Ground is a debut novel that is on the edge of fantasy (but it's not really) and folklore (but no, not that) and literary fiction. Ada and her father can cure illnesses. They live on the edge of a village and locals - "Cures" - make appointments to come to them to get cured of whatever ails them. Nearly every ailment is curable, but there are some that are too far gone so Ada and her father do their best to give the person more time and comfort.

They cure by literally cracking open the person's body and removing the sickness. The patient is thankfully asleep because, in order to help fix the patient, Ada and her father bury the patient, alive, in the Ground. The patient is dug up after an appropriate interval and sent home, healthier than when they arrived.

Clearly, Ada and her father are not human, but Ada wants to be more than what she is. The villagers ignore Ada unless they are sick, then the happily interact with Ada and her father. Ada helps cure Samson and ends up taking him as her lover. Olivia, Samson's sister, is pregnant and comes for cures often because of pregnancy issues. Ada's father wants her to stop seeing Samson because, well, he's human and it's going to cause problems for them. Oh, little does he know.

This novel ends in the most intriguing, confusing, eye-opening, OMG way. I was thinking about this for DAYS afterwards trying to maneuver my mind around everything that happened. I plan to re-read it soon to see if I could have picked up on more clues, if they even exist. The author writes in an interesting way and I'm not sure she knows what happened (The author answers questions in the FB group - go take a look).

A talk with the author