From the publication info, this is Herbert's first book, although The River Mouth came out earlier. Which explains why some of the characterisation -- which I found such a strength of The River Mouth -- seemed a bit rough around the edges. Herbert has managed delightfully distinct voices for each of the viewpoint characters, but there are times that they are just a bit didactic, a bit stilted for my liking.

From the blurb, I was primed for this to be some kind of pandemic book. Turns out it is actually set in late 2019, so, ah, not quite. Instead it is a gentle stroll through the lives of several members of a community.

I did appreciate that there are lots of details that are elided, suggested, left for the reader to deduce. And to feel smug about, because isn't it obvious, how is it that the character has missed such an obvious detail. And that a couple of the story threads, which had the potential to derail the rest, were kept relatively minor. This is something that I loved in The River Mouth, and I'm optimistic that this will continue to be a feature of Herbert's work

For people familiar with the real places mentioned in the book, there is some looseness in how locations are described that I found disconcerting. There was certainly a moment were I was all 'you can't see both of those from there' where I wondered if I'd just missed the correct interpretation of where the character was standing. I had fun attempting to work out where the fictional Harewood Hall would be, with my initial guess being in quite the wrong suburb. ( )