With this novel, Rachel Donohue has solidified her status in my mind as a truly exceptional writer. I just love reading her words. The Temple House Vanishing was excellent and The Beauty of Impossible Things is no different.

This story hinges on the beliefs and mysteries of the paranormal in an unnamed, small coastal town in Ireland. The atmosphere of the novel is palpable and the depiction of the narrator, Natasha's, sense of the world, her empathic and supernatural abilities, is hauntingly beautiful.

The intrigues, the obsessions and the heightened stakes of a tight knit community build to a crescendo in a perfectly paced narrative. The foreshadowing throughout the novel really builds the suspense whilst making the reader feel like they don't want to look. I believed Natasha, I didn't want to look, and yet I couldn't look away.

I also particularly enjoyed the depiction of 'academics' that have an interest in the paranormal and unexplained. You can feel how much it means to Natasha that someone validates her experiences, but as the novel progresses she is being used more and more for prestige. The narration works in such a way that you can see the affects of this period in her life have haunted her and it is both interesting and painful to watch.