Metal Fish, Falling Snow is concrete and lace, a multi-layered, poetic work which delves hard and often surgically into the hearts of its characters and allows readers significant insight into the interplay of despair and hope that characterises being human.' * Judges' comments, Prime Minister's Literary Awards 2021 (shortlisted) * 'A breathtaking debut with such an assured, original voice-one page and I was all in. Her take on the 'road trip' novel is replete with irony, compassion, humour and near-tragedy, and is further distinguished by Dylan's ability to move between the known and unknown worlds, a device that allows Moore to explore the entanglements of other lives more fully.

Moore writes with the technical skill and linguistic panache of an author who is in complete control of her material. The strengths of the novel lie in the protagonist Dylan's fierce and uncompromised voice, and in the originality of the aesthetic. Metal Fish, Falling Snow is concrete and lace, a multi-layered, poetic work which delves hard and often surgically into the hearts of its characters and allows readers significant insight into the interplay of despair and hope that characterises being human.'A richly metaphoric tale of a character's dualised search: how to come to terms with the loss of her beloved mother and her own role in that loss and how to interpret and align her mixed heritage identity. Her take on the ‘road trip’ novel is replete with irony, compassion, humour and near-tragedy, and is further distinguished by Dylan’s ability to move between the known and unknown worlds, a device that allows Moore to explore the entanglements of other lives more fully. The strengths of the novel lie in the protagonist Dylan’s fierce and uncompromised voice, and in the originality of the aesthetic.

Metal Fish, Falling Snow is a richly metaphoric tale of a character’s dualised search: how to come to terms with the loss of her beloved mother and her own role in that loss and how to interpret and align her mixed heritage identity. As Dylan battles to understand and negotiate this world, her rage is fuelled by a single question: how can she possibly survive without knowing where and how she belongs? The child of an Afro Caribbean father and a French mother-the girl who was predicted to be a boy-this fourteen-year-old whirlwind rages against a world which always seems set to move against her with cold, dispassionate certainty. In her own words, she ‘could be anywhere’.

Metal Fish, Falling Snow by Cath Moore