Unspeakable Beauty, the debut novel from Swansea-based writer Georgia Carys Williams follows her short story collection Second-Hand Rain, nominated for a number of prestigious literary awards.

Unspeakable Beauty is set on a Welsh coastline and tells a story of Violet, a quiet only child, whose biggest dream is to become a ballet star. Williams pens the tale of introvertism, of the value that being a quiet person brings to life, but also the potential of being hurt that it carries. It is also a hugely engrossing story about dance and how it can become a language in itself, about dreams and finding one’s place in the world. 

Written with a poetic tone that could easily become overdone, distracting from the story itself, as it happens Unspeakable Beauty is perfectly measured; reading this novel is often a breathtaking pleasure. At just over 400 pages long, it is a mammoth debut, but the time flies by as the reader follows the life of Violet, the fairly short chapters adding to the fluidity of reading experience. A truly impressive achievement from a rising star of Welsh literature.