More than two years have passed since I read Sarah Moss’s Ghost Wall, but its atmosphere of oppression and menace has lingered. Similar eeriness seeps from her newest novel, Summerwater. Set in a remote holiday camp in Scotland, Summerwater is the account of a single rainy day seen through the eyes not only of the visitors but of the animals and birds nearby. No one writes quite like Sarah Moss. She’s wonderful at narrating people’s inner lives – and especially the continuous monologue in their heads – in a way that feels authentic. She’s brilliant, too, at depicting family life, its tensions, alliances, and tiny fractures, and is as sure-footed with children as she is with adults.

Summerwater is a very special novel. Truthful, honest, and unsettling, it seems to me to confirm Moss as one of the most distinctive and talented novelists writing today.