Kala
'A spectacular read for Donna Tartt and Tana French fans'
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4.2 • 127 Ratings
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- £1.99
Publisher Description
THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WATERSTONES DEBUT FICTION PRIZE 2023
'Unforgettable' Observer
'Masterful' Irish Times
'Explosive' The Telegraph
We used to be such a force, back then when she was still with us. What happened to her?
In the seaside town of Kinlough three old friends are thrown together for the first time in years. They - Helen, Joe and Mush - were part of an original group of six inseparable teenagers in the summer of 2003, with motherless, reckless Kala Lanann as their group's white-hot centre. Soon after that summer's peak, Kala disappeared without a trace.
Now it's fifteen years later. Human remains have been discovered in the woods. Two more girls have gone missing. As past and present begin to collide, the estranged friends are forced to confront their own complicity in the events that led to Kala's disappearance...
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'A gritty heartbreaker of a thriller... a spectacular read for Donna Tartt and Tana French fans' Kirkus
'The thriller of the moment' The i Paper, Best Summer Reads
'Tana French fans will relish Kala' Guardian, Best Summer Reads
'A compulsive joy' Daily Mail
'Kala heralds an exciting new voice' Observer
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The ties that bind us when we are young are not easy to undo. So it is with the six teenagers—three girls, three boys—drawn together in an Irish tourist town. Broken apart when one of their number, the titular Kala, disappears, they come together again 15 years later. The anxious, angst-filled relationships that defined their teenage years are rendered with devastating accuracy, and mirrored by a growing consciousness of the scars seen and unseen that are carried into adult life. As the mystery surrounding Kala’s disappearance begins to unravel, the town’s silence becomes increasingly, unbearably suffocating. “Gripping” is a cliché, but when it’s true, as it is here, it’s hard to find a better word. There’s a constant hum of menace, an air of barely suppressed violence, threatening any moment to spill over into appalling bloodshed. And with the stakes raised so successfully, the tension is frankly agonising. A genuinely heartrending, heart stopping tale.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Walsh's engrossing if overstuffed story of lifelong friends revolves around a mysterious death in the tourist town of Kinlough, Ireland. In 2003, a group of teenage friends is shattered when one of the six, Kala Lannan, disappears amid circumstances that are only revealed near the end of the novel. Three of the others reunite 15 years later after Kala's bones are discovered at a local building site. Joe Brennan, once Kala's boyfriend and now a famous rock star, has recently returned to open a bar. Helen Laughlin, who was Kala's best friend and is now a struggling investigative reporter in Canada, learns of the discovery while home for a wedding and determines to solve the mystery of Kala's death. Mush, the glue of the group, still works at his mother's café, and after Kala's remains are found, his two teenage cousins go missing. Walsh unpacks individual events through multiple perspectives, and the novel thrives when Joe, Helen, and Mush grapple with conflicting memories of the past. There are a few too many red herrings, and some woolly hints of a temporal reality in which the characters see versions of themselves at different ages, yet the emotional pull of Walsh's core trio steadies the ship. Despite some wobbles, this is hard to put down.
Customer Reviews
karla
Brilliant
such a good book
Brilliantly written and such wonderful characters - highly recommend
absolutely wonderful
breathtakingly good