Get our Best Book Club Books of 2025 eBook!

Summary and Reviews of Follow Me to Ground by Sue Rainsford

Follow Me to Ground by Sue Rainsford

Follow Me to Ground

by Sue Rainsford
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (10):
  • First Published:
  • Jan 21, 2020, 208 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jan 2021, 208 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

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.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

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).

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book



Mythical Healers

World Health Organization logo with staff and snakeThe 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.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked Follow Me to Ground, try these:

  • Icarus jacket

    Icarus

    by K. Ancrum

    Published 2025

    About this book

    More by this author

    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...

  • I'm the Girl jacket

    I'm the Girl

    by Courtney Summers

    Published 2024

    About this book

    More by this author

    The next searing and groundbreaking queer young adult novel from New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author Courtney Summers.

We have 9 read-alikes for Follow Me to Ground, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    Real Americans
    by Rachel Khong
    From the author of Goodbye, Vitamin, a novel exploring family, identity, and the shaping of destiny.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    The Fairbanks Four
    by Brian Patrick O’Donoghue

    One murder, four guilty convictions, and a community determined to find justice.

  • Book Jacket

    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.

  • Book Jacket

    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.

  • Book Jacket

    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.

Who Said...

We should have a great fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

A C on H S

and be entered to win..