This is my fifth Dawson book, and the first of her novels. I've always felt her writing doesn't achieve the wider acclaim it deserves, but that's been based on her later books. In Trick of the Light, Dawson takes us to a remote mountainous area in Washington State in the 1990s, where the protagonist is having a fresh start away from the hustle and bustle of London with her young daughter and partner. Whilst the cabin is extremely basic, our narrator quickly embraces a newfound love of nature, but despite the fresh start her partner seems unable to shake his demons and control of his anger.

This is a very obvious first novel, particularly in the first third or so, to the point where I wasn't sure I'd be able to endure it to the end. Classic tell rather than show mistakes, with every physical part of the cabin, characters and environment detailed to the nth degree, and a number of cliches that irked me. Surprisingly, though, once she's got that out of her system and has satisfied herself that her readers could picture the scene, the rest of the novel improved greatly, and I actually started to enjoy it. There's an underlying tension that works well in the remote setting, not only between the narrator and her unpredictable parter, but also in relation to the narrator's short fuse with her toddler daughter, who bears the brunt of her fear and anxiety and own lack of anger control.

If you've not read any of Dawson's novels before this is definitely not a recommended starting place, but I'm glad that it wasn't an entirely wasted few hours.

3.5 stars - I don't agree with the plaudits from The Times and the likes of Margaret Forster on the jacket, but it was enjoyable enough once we got the dreadful first part out of the way. ( )