A stunning literary memoir about the author's relationship with a cove in Cornwall
13th October 2025
Paperback
PRODUCT INFORMATION
Summary
A stunning literary memoir about the author's relationship with a cove in Cornwall
Description
For over five decades, Beth Lynch has been repeatedly drawn to a rocky spot on the North Cornwall coast, where her earliest memories are tied to idyllic family holidays. As she grows older, her connection to the cove deepens - this slippery interface of land and sea becomes her refuge from anxiety and school bullying. Following the deaths of her parents, strange occurrences around the cove leave Lynch questioning how well she truly knows this section of coast that so irresistibly calls to her. What secrets does it hold? Is she safer staying away?
The Cove is a lyrical meditation on being a revenant, on haunting and being haunted, as Lynch, through encounters with quarrymen, wartime women, and an enigmatic archaeologist - along with JMW Turner, Tennyson, Trollope and the Hardys - reflects on mortality, our deepest fears, and the nuanced ways we part with the dead. It explores the profound impacts of change in both people and places, and the transformative dance between the two.Critic Reviews
A mesmerising, elegiac mix of meditation and memoir Saga Magazine
Beth Lynch is a gifted writer Gardens Illustrated
Lynch writes lyrically about the natural world DAILY MAIL
A beautiful memoir. I loved the literary and historical layerings to the narrative . . . a delightful sense of tension, even jeopardy -- JAMES CANTON
Much like reading Where the Hornbeam Grows, I was continually taken aback by the skill and nuance of [Lynch's] observations - how vividly, beautifully and of course lyrically she conjured both the scenery and atmosphere of every place in the book, not least the cove itself. The Cove also brought freshly and sharply to mind the physical places that have been anchors in my own life, highlighting elements I'd not thought about, as only the good books manage to do . . . This is a book that stays with you and widens your perception of how people and place intertwine -- MATT COLLINS, author FOREST
About the Author
Beth Lynch grew up in Sussex. She holds a doctorate in seventeenth-century literature, and taught English at Cambridge University before training in garden design. For several years she lived and gardened in Switzerland, the subject of her first book Where the Hornbeam Grows (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2019). She now lives in Northamptonshire.
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13th October 2025
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