September 2025 Book of the Month | Emma recommends... Helm - Sarah Hall

Emma recommends... Held together by the central character of Helm - Britain's only named wind, local to Cumbria - this story ranges from a Neolithic tribe to 21st century climate chamge academic, via a medieval exorcist and a Victorian meteorologist. The voice of Helm is playful, ironic, curious and sometimes vengeful, the evocation of the Cumbrian landscape virtuosic, and the whole thing simply glorious. You'll not have read anything quite like this before, and probably never will again. Breathtaking.

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Helm is a ferocious, mischievous wind - a subject of folklore and wonder - who has blasted the sublime landscape of the Eden Valley since the very dawn of time. This is Helm's life story, formed from the chronicles of those the wind enchanted: the Neolithic tribe who tried to placate it, the Dark Age wizard priest who wanted to banish it, the Victorian steam engineer who attempted to capture it - and the farmer's daughter who fell in love.

But now Dr Selima Sutar, surrounded by measuring instruments, alone in her observation hut, fears the end is nigh. Vital and audacious, Helm is the elemental tale of a unique life force - and of a relationship: between nature and people, neither of whom can weather life without the other.