The Burial Tide by Neil Sharpson

The beginning of The Burial Tide exploits a core human fear: being buried alive. The main character, Mara Fitch, awakens to find herself in this ignominious situation. Luckily, she’s able to claw her way to freedom.

But that’s just the beginning of her troubles. Mara doesn’t remember who she is. She’s on the small, isolated island of Inishbannock, located off the coast of Ireland. Many of the townsfolk claim to know her, but who (if anyone) can she trust? She’s told that a plague swept through the island, killing many of the inhabitants, including (supposedly) herself.

Mara gradually pieces together her past after discovering a series of mysterious clues, including a decades-old picture of a woman who looks exactly like her.

I won’t give away any specifics, but The Burial Tide explores an area of Irish mythology that I was not familiar with. It was cool to see the story go in a direction that is not well explored in horror fiction. It would be very difficult for a reader to guess this story’s twist at the beginning of the novel.

This is my first Neil Sharpson book. His writing style is descriptive and cinematic. Sharpson is adept at describing body language, especially in situations where characters are trying to hide their true feelings (like smiles that don’t reach their eyes).

This book has a sardonic sense of humor that I really enjoyed. That’s important because much of the story has a rather dour tone. I didn’t particularly care about most of the characters, but the mystery and humor kept me entertained.

My only major complaint is that The Burial Tide has an excessive number of POV characters. Sharpson writes in restricted third person, alternating character perspectives between chapters. There’s nothing at all wrong with that. In fact, it’s the POV that I prefer to read and usually use in my own writing.

But Sharpson uses about 15 POV characters. That’s way too many, especially when most of the people on the island are as dull as dishwater. I didn’t care about what they were thinking and had no interest in their perspectives on anything.

I usually dislike single POV novels, but Sharpson would have been better off using just Mara’s point of view. That would have made the novel even more mysterious. Alternatively, 2-3 POV characters would probably have worked fine.

I was in the mood for some fun Irish folk horror. The Burial Tide mostly delivered. I recently posted a list of Irish horror movies. The Burial Tide has a similar setting and atmosphere to those films. If you enjoy movies like The Hallow, you’ll probably like this book.

I interpreted Mara’s story as an allegory for the limiting beliefs that are ingrained in us by society. When we are told that we are a certain way, and we internalize this information, it becomes part of our identity. We become restricted from reaching our full potential. I have no idea if this is what Sharpson intended, but that’s what I took away from his story.