-
Access Our
Best Book Club
Books of 2025!
Summary | Excerpt | Reading Guide | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
Book Reviewed by:A haunted, surreal debut novel about an otherworldly young woman, her father, and her lover that culminates in a shocking moment of betrayal - one that upends our understanding of power, predation, and agency.
Ada and her father, touched by the power to heal illness, live on the edge of a village where they help sick locals—or "Cures"—by cracking open their damaged bodies or temporarily burying them in the reviving, dangerous Ground nearby. Ada, a being both more and less than human, is mostly uninterested in the Cures, until she meets a man named Samson. When they strike up an affair, to the displeasure of her father and Samson's widowed, pregnant sister, Ada is torn between her old way of life and new possibilities with her lover—and eventually comes to a decision that will forever change Samson, the town, and the Ground itself.
Follow Me to Ground is fascinating and frightening, urgent and propulsive. In Ada, award-winning author Sue Rainsford has created an utterly bewitching heroine, one who challenges conventional ideas of womanhood and the secrets of the body. Slim but authoritative, Follow Me to Ground lingers long after its final page, pulling the reader into a dream between fairy tale and nightmare, desire and delusion, folktale and warning.
Henry Law
It was easy to forget they're not like us.
You could be looking at Miss Ada and talking to her simply, and then she'd say something like
Take into account the evenings are getting long, Mr. Law.
Her father too. We'd be talking easily enough and then all of a sudden I'd remember he knew my pop and all my uncles from the day they were born till the day they died.
I suppose it was easy to forget because they made it easy. They had to, to get by.
At its core, Follow Me To Ground is a story about a daughter on the cusp of womanhood carving a life for herself away from her well-meaning if overbearing father. This could have so easily been just another fantastically-tinged tale of a girl seeking and attaining her own agency. Thankfully, it's much stranger than that, and all the more powerful for it— a haunting, intoxicating debut that establishes its author as one to watch in the future...continued
Full Review
(680 words)
This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access,
become a member today.
(Reviewed by Dean Muscat).
Megan Mayhew Bergman, author of Birds of a Lesser Paradise and Almost Famous Women
Sue Rainsford has written a gorgeous and unsettling novel. Follow Me To Ground is a fresh and primal exploration of bodies and healing, of the fight between one's calling and most ardent desires. A stunningly original debut. Téa Obreht, author of The Tiger's Wife and Inland
Sue Rainsford's Follow Me to Ground is a triumph of imagination and myth-bending—a weird, tender, haunted and deeply affecting spectacle, equal parts beauty and horror, and unlike anything you will read this year.
The central characters in Follow Me to Ground are two human-like beings with mystical powers to heal all illnesses and even resurrect the dead. It seems we have forever been fascinated by the magic of healing and the ability to cheat our own mortality. Ancient mythologies from across the globe featured powerful healers that humans turned to in search of cures and remedies for all kinds of sicknesses.
One of the most widespread symbols of the medical world today is derived from the Greek myth of Asclepius, the god of medicine who brandished a serpent-draped staff—the image of which can be seen in medical and pharmaceutical logos across the globe, including that of the World Health Organization. As a child, Asclepius was rescued by ...
This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.
If you liked Follow Me to Ground, try these:
by K. Ancrum
Published 2025
Perfect for fans of Adam Silvera and Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, this suspenseful queer YA romance from critically acclaimed author K. Ancrum reimagines the tale of Icarus as a star-crossed love story between a young art thief and the son of the man he's been stealing from—think Portrait of a Thief for YA readers...
by Courtney Summers
Published 2024
The next searing and groundbreaking queer young adult novel from New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author Courtney Summers.
Happy Land
by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
From the New York Times bestselling author, a novel about a family's secret ties to a vanished American Kingdom.
The Seven O'Clock Club
by Amelia Ireland
Four strangers join an experimental treatment to heal broken hearts in Amelia Ireland's heartfelt debut novel.
One Death at a Time
by Abbi Waxman
A cranky ex-actress and her Gen Z sobriety sponsor team up to solve a murder that could send her back to prison in this dazzling mystery.
The Fairbanks Four
by Brian Patrick O’Donoghue
One murder, four guilty convictions, and a community determined to find justice.
.gif)
Never read a book through merely because you have begun it
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!