It’s an uncanny experience having the past two years reflected back at you in a fictional narrative, with terms that were once reserved for news headlines – social distancing, lockdown, quarantine – now fixed on the page. One of a growing number of ‘lockdown novels’, Sarah Moss’s latest book, The Fell, is set in the Peak District in November 2020, during the second national lockdown. Its title is taken from the lush hilly environment of its setting, while also punning on the accident that occurs at its centre.

Kate and her teenage son, Matt, are halfway through a two-week period of self-isolation that resulted from Kate being exposed to the virus by a colleague at the cafe where she works. Next door, Alice has been shielding for months, having been deemed ‘extremely vulnerable’ due to a