Seeing as I chose it as one of my top five books of last year, you already know I loved This House by Sian Northey, translated from Welsh by Susan Walton. It’s a gentle, quiet novel about old age, grief, friendship and home.

We meet Anna arriving home from hospital on crutches, hobbling around the remote house called Nant yr Aur, where she lives alone. But she doesn’t have to cope entirely on her own. Soon we meet her friend Emyr, who drops in on her most days. He’s a farmer and her only neighbour within walking distance. They’re both getting old and though Emyr has a wife and two grown sons at home, he clearly values Anna’s friendship.

Between Emyr’s visits, Anna reflects back on her life in the house, prompted by a letter she’s received from someone offering to buy it. This isn’t the first offer she’s had, and she doesn’t plan to accept, but it’s made her reminisce. We learn she had a partner once, Ioan; in fact, the house was his, but she was the one who fell in love with it. When Anna decides to meet Sîon, the young man who’s made the offer, they strike up an unlikely friendship.

“No was the answer, of course. Had she wished to sell, she would have done so years ago. She had received far better offers… But there was an understanding, a covenant of sorts. She’d understood that the day she’d first stepped over the threshold of Nant yr Aur. Or maybe she was imagining that now – that day was so long ago, as distant as yesterday.”

Though this isn’t told in first person, it’s a very close third person that feels almost as though Anna is telling her story. But key information is withheld until late in the story. Is this Anna ignoring or resisting certain truths, or is her memory beginning to fail? This creates a slow burn small mystery but that’s not really the point of the book, in my opinion.

Sian Northey has created a wonderfully compelling heroine. Anna is gruff, often outright grumpy. She insists on running this old cottage despite her age and health making it difficult to remain. She’s stubborn and practical but also whimsical and funny.

“Anna sat down on one of the dining chairs and put the lid back on the tin of wax. She was suddenly tired, and the blood in her plastered leg felt like molten lead. She regretted using up her energy to do a job that could have waited…A bit of dust never killed anyone. She started to make a mental list of things that could kill people, or kill them sooner than dust on furniture – a lack of food, heartbreak, earthquakes, an axe in the hands of a madman…”

The tale about a woman who falls in love with a house sounds mad but this is anything but. It’s a very real, humane story that made me laugh and cry. I really loved this and I’m grateful to the Good Book Club for sending it to me as part of their subscription last year.

Yn y Ty Hwn published 2011 by Y Lolfa Cyf.

This translation published 2024 by 3Times Rebel Press.