Where The Serpent Lives

Where the Serpent Lives is the first novel by the poet Ruth Padel. I didn’t know much about Padel prior to reading the book, but the author biography mentioned that she’d been acclaimed for her nature writing – and, straight away, it was easy to see why. I found the first scene, which describes an e......more

A wildlife novel. This was an unusual novel, melding family relationships with vivid descriptions of wildlife and a heartfelt plea for conservation. Had I known beforehand that the author was a poet I would have avoided the book, expecting lengthy descriptive prose, but I found myself totally absorbe......more

Engaging and interesting, but falls so easily into sentimentality.......more

Didn’t realise I took so long to read this book but it did changed me so much. My outlook towards the different shades everyone carries with themselves, the resentment and unexpressed emotions we carry all our lives; everything has changed. This book is so dark that sometimes you feel that king Cobr......more

I loved the descriptions of animal life, learned a lot! Reading this book led me to Ruth's poetry and I found I loved her poetry more - beautiful word flow; this is definitely evident in her novel too, but links between plot themes and characters sometimes seemed disjointed. I will certainly be seek......more