Hovering by Dorothy-Jane Daniels

I would like to thank Francesca from Luna Press for an advance copy of this novella in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Luna Press

Published – 8/2

Price – £7.99 paperback £3.99 Kindle eBook

When Zo's campervan leaves her stranded in an unfamiliar part of Sydney, she impulsively decides to stay at a bed and breakfast while repairs are being made.

As the days stretch into weeks, Zo begins to feel stuck. There are signs the house is not quite as it seems. The place shifts between decay and normality and at times she senses ghostly presences and echoes of other lives.

Something, or someone, is keeping her there. Zo knows that she must find a way to leave before she too becomes only an echo.

I suspect we all know the power of wanting to escape from our lives. In the last few years who hasn# dreamed of getting away from it all? In fantasy the attraction is worlds that cannot possibly exist and who wouldn’t want to visit but would we always want to stay? In Dorothy -Jane Daniel’s excellent eerie tale Hovering a simple trip over a river sends one woman into a very different world.

Zo just has to repair her campervan; enjoying a few days alone while her husband is overseas, and her children are at camp she makes the decision to travel across Sydney for the garage. As many repairs do though more time is needed, and Zo is stuck away from home. The solution is a brochure advertising a charming house-share for a short stay. Callum the owner welcomes Zo and despite the strange occupants Zo feels comfortable enough to stay. But the repairs take longer, Zo stays longer and longer and starts to notice that this side of the river is more different than she expects; the days merge into one another and perhaps this house itself wants her to stay.

Hovering is a wonderful mysterious fantasy full of atmosphere and strange sights that pleasingly we don’t get a nice simple explanation for at the end. It reminds me of the folk tales where wanderers would just travel into a strange parallel world where the laws of nature itself are up for grabs. Daniels gives such strange sights as men fishing in abandoned buildings or families sending babies across a river a haunting, unsettling and yet beautiful vision. Time speeds up and down with a sense of decay and renewal that disconcerts us as to what is exactly real in this area. You sense a world with its own history and culture that may or may not be our future after climate change or possibly a parallel world and its never immediately clear what caused it all. This is that type of novella with that rare quality of strange unknowable depth making you aware that you’re just glimpsing a sight of the larger tale and yet that glimpse itself feels enough. You do not need an explanation you just accept it and appreciate the sense of wonder and strangeness it gives you.

Watching Zo’s reaction to this trip is also unusual. We are so often struck in fantasy by a hero keen to either escape or fix these worlds. In Zo’s case neither is the option she wants. Initially she is embracing the strange. Like any traveller the chance to shake your old life get off your shoulders and relax into a new one. Zo enjoys the strange coffee shops, wandering and engaging with the strange housemates trying friendships and, in some cases, just avoiding arguments. The house rewards her rediscovering her love of playing piano. While there is a sense of eeriness to the whole place its not a horror tale this is fantasy at its most enigmatic and entrancing. Like all trips it’s the experiences that are the attraction and this offers one very different to her settled life back home. The question for Zo like it is for most travellers is why do I want to go back and if I do can I even try? Zo balances two lives she could live and tries to work out which would be most satisfying. There is an ominous note that this House and occupants will not let her escape either

Hovering is not a tale that gives the reader any firm answers but one that I applaud it for its ability to gently push the reader off the edge of our comfort zone and ask us to trust that the story will take us like Zo to where we need to go. Imaginative, lyrical, and haunting for a lost world we ay never see again I think its well worth a reader’s time. You may consider while reading how travel broadens the mind or allows us to be slightly different people during and after an adventure. Well worth your time!