Air We Breathe by Andrea Barrett
W.W. Norton
The award-winning author of Voyage of the Narwhal, Ship Fever and Servants of the Map, has written an evocative saga of American life in her new book, The Air We Breathe. Set in 1916 as America prepares for war, the story follows the lives of a diverse group of people struck with tuberculosis as they struggle to be cured. When the well meaning efforts of one patient leads to a tragic accident and betrayal, the faraway war is brought home as this insular community deals with prejudice and vigilante sentiment. The author has received a National Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
“majestic, breathtaking, thrilling” – San Diego Union-Tribune
Away by Amy Bloom
Random House
National Book Award finalist and author of several novels including Come to Me and Love Invents Us, Amy Bloom has written a spellbinding story that moves from a destroyed Belorussian village, plowed under during a pogrom, to the harsh world of 1925’s New York City’s Lower East Side and then to the hardships and unexpected pleasures of love in the Alaskan frontier ---all tied together by the entwined and exceptional life and loves of her heroine, Lillian Leyb. Away is a well written, panoramic in scope novel, laced with heartache but also imbued with a strong thread of hope.
“rousing, utterly absorbing” – San Francisco Chronicle
August by Gerard Woodward
W.W. Norton
Shortlisted for the Whitbread Fiction Award and the third of a trilogy featuring Aldous Jones and his family, August is a subtle and quaint depiction of the life of this English family through fifteen summer trips to Wales. Returning to the same camping field year after year, the family begins to realize that the rural site seems to be changing in conjunction with their urban life, creating a parallel universe instead of the hoped for getaway that they expected from their summer vacations. Written with deadpan wit and poignant evocation, the author has again depicted a gentle portrait of this wonderfully quirky family.
“Beguiling…full of enjoyably acute social observation” –London Times
Blood Of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani
Hachette
A beautiful and mesmerizing tale set in 17th century Persia of a young woman faced with a dismal fate following the death of her beloved father who left her without a dowry. Working as a servant in her uncle’s house she blossoms as a brilliant designer of Persian carpets. As her talent grows however, her chances for a happy marriage diminish. Soon she is faced with a daunting decision. Written with passion and intricacy, Blood of Flowers is a stunning story of culture, romance and art woven as tightly together as the carpets created by this daring woman.
“hypnotic…a beautifully imagined debut novel” – San Francisco Chronicle
Bridge Of Sighs by Richard Russo
Random House
Author of multiple awarding winning titles including Empire Falls, Nobody’s Fool and Straight Man, Richard Russo has written another classic tale about America filled with details of small-town life and the bonds that tie families and friends. As a long-time married couple prepares to embark on a vacation to Italy, they begin to examine the past friendship with the husband’s oldest friend (and once rival for his wife’s affections) who had left their town as a young prodigy to live a life in Venice, far removed from their hometown of Thomaston. As the story enfolds, the interwoven destinies of these three soon-to-be-reunited friends are revealed in ways both surprising and moving in this intricate and multifaceted novel of American life.
“richly evocative and beautifully wrought.” – New York Times
Chess Machine by Robert Lohr
Penguin
A creatively bizarre fiction novel based on true events, The Chess Machine conveys the strange story of Baron von Kempelen and the Mechanical Turk---an unbeatable chess-playing automaton that astonished Europe in the late 18th century. Unbeknownst to the public, the Turk is operated from within by a genius chess-playing dwarf named Tibor. When a countess dies mysteriously in the presence of the Turk, the machine and its inventor become the target of espionage, persecution and intrigue. Darkly cerebral, this debut novel is a daring piece of storytelling, and can only be compared to Perfume by Patrick Suskind, with its rich depiction of lust, scandal and deception.
“rich in detail and psychological depth” - Kirkus Review
Cleft by Doris Lessing
Harper Collins
Considered to be one of the most celebrated and distinguished writers of our time, Doris Lessing has crafted an imaginative novel that confronts two themes: how men and women manage to live side by side and how gender affects every aspect of our existence. As an elder Roman senator retells the history of human creation, he reveals the little known story of the Clefts, an ancient community of women who bear only female children. The harmony of this female only community is suddenly thrown in jeopardy upon the arrival of a strange new child—a boy child. Thus in mythic form, Lessing explores the strange battle of the sexes in this dark and powerful parable. Doris Lessing is the author of more than 45 titles, winner of multiple international awards including the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature.
“writer of enormous insight and prodigious talent” – Chicago Tribune
Collaborator of Bethlehem by Matt Beynon Rees
Houghton Mifflin
Winner of the prestigious 2008 Crime Writers Assn. New Blood Dagger Award, Collaborator of Bethlehem is an exceptionally gripping and highly readable mystery that opens a window into the soul-destroying and real life painful conditions experienced by people living in the West Bank. The first of a planned trilogy by Rees features Omar Yussef, a history teacher to the children of Bethlehem who finds himself and his family being threatened by the powerful & violent Palestinian Martyrs Brigades men. He is impelled to solve the mystery behind the arrest of a former student for collaboration with the Israelis in the death of a Martyrs Brigade leader and the subsequent murder of the Palestinian’s wife. This riveting novel set in the heart of the Middle East and its tensions, fully explores the effects of how Palestinians live today through the experiences of a brand new fictional detective.
“an astonishing first novel” – New York Times Book Review
Crashing Through by Robert Kurson
Random House
Crashing Through is the true story of Mike May, blinded at age three who went on to live an extraordinary life--world champion skier, successful business and family man. As a grown man he is confronted with the startling news that a new and rare transplant surgery could restore his vision. Thus begins a fascinating journey as author, Robert Kurson allows us to see into May’s mind and heart as he dares to make the choice to have the surgery and into the intriguing scientific and psychological understanding of the brain’s role in allowing us to see. With great storytelling skill, Kurson has crafted a thrilling and gripping telling of this amazing true story. The author’s previous book, Shadow Divers was on the New York Times bestseller list for twenty-one weeks.
“an astonishing story” – Chicago Tribune
Elephant and the Dragon by Robyn Meredith
W.W. Norton
From an award-winning journalist and presently a foreign correspondent for Forbes, comes a highly readable and essential guide to understanding how India and China are reshaping our world. Mixing history and present day reporting, Robyn Meredith untangles the complex web of business and politics, along with the environmental and cultural issues, that entwine India, China and the West. She also outlines how all Americans can understand the vast changes and how we can thrive in this new global age.
“fast-paced, readable and revealing.” – International Herald Tribune
Edward Trencom’s Nose by Giles Milton
Macmillan
From the author of six non-fiction books including Nathaniel’s Nutmeg and Samurai William, comes a deliciously witty debut novel that combines history, dark comedy and cheese. Following in the footsteps of nine previous generations, Edward Trencom has bumbled through life using his trusty sense of smell for good cheese to turn his family cheese shop into the most celebrated fromagerie in England. But the discovery, in a crate of family papers, that the previous nine generations have all come to “sticky ends” turns his life upside down. Investigating further places him in the middle of a Byzantine riddle that seems to have no obvious answer. Written with clever charm, Edward Trencom’s Nose is a perfect example of eccentric English wit.
“delicious reading” – The Roanoke Times
Free Food For Millionaires by Min Jin Lee
Hachette
A mesmerizing debut novel about the cultural and generational struggle of Korean immigrants as the mother and father desperately work at holding onto their cultural identity and their Princeton educated daughter, Casey Han strives to successfully navigate through the enticing world of upper class American society. As she moves through her daily life in Manhattan and is exposed to the reality of having expensive habits without the means to afford them, the reader is left with a compelling portrait of New York City and its world of haves and have-nots.
“compulsively readable” – San Francisco Chronicle
Frida’s Bed by Slavenka Drakulic
Penguin
Frida’s Bed is a skillful and daring imagining of the last hours of one of the world’s most influential artist, Frida Kahlo. Diagnosed with polio at a young age and suffering the effects of a severe accident, Kahlo’s lifelong chronic pain was a recurring theme in her disturbing and extraordinary art. The author has beautifully woven Kahlo’s memories into descriptions of her paintings producing a “meditation on the nature of chronic pain and creativity” as she portrays the final days of a woman whose unusual life continues to fascinate. A great read for both literary fiction readers and art lovers alike.
“intensely moving” – Publishers Weekly
Great Man by Kate Christensen
Random House
The 2008 Pen/Faulkner Prize winner and author of three other novels including Epicure’s Lament has written a scintillating life comedy about untidy truths, needy egos and the personal and professional jostling for artistic power in this witty novel set amongst the arty avant garde in New York City. Two competing biographers collide as they both seek to uncover the truth about Oscar Feldman, a recently deceased painter of female nudes. He has left behind a wife, an autistic son, a sister Maxine, herself a notable painter…and a separate world populated by a longtime mistress and their twin daughters. These worlds begin to rub up against each other following his death as the untidy secrets begin to bubble to the surface. Although titled the Great Man, this bitingly funny story in its own ironic fashion focuses more on the women in his life…and supports the cliché “behind each Great Man…”
“nimble, witty & discerning” – Chicago Tribune
Here at the End of the World We Learn to Dance by Lloyd Jones
Random House
From the Man Booker Prize short-listed author of Mister Pip, comes a sensuous and quietly seductive telling of two love stories that span three generations and two continents. Evoking the entrancing power of the tango, one of the world’s most famous dances, the author tells the story of Louise and Schmidt, who while hiding in a rural cave in New Zealand during the early days of World War I, begin a love affair as Schmidt teaches Louise the tango---a love affair that only ends thirty years later with their separate deaths in Buenos Aires. Years later, Schmidt’s granddaughter and keeper of the family secrets, owns a restaurant in New Zealand where a shy young student washes the dishes. One night she says to him, ”I need to dance” thus beginning the connecting story of how we fall in love via the entrancing and obsessive power of the tango.
“one of the best books of the year” – Isabel Allende
Keeping The World Away by Margaret Forster
Random House
Based on an actual early 20th century painting that was lost for decades, this engrossing novel follows its real and imagined adventures over a 100 year period, and the lives of the different women who owned it in turn. Written by the author of more than 20 fiction and 10 non-fiction titles and the award winning book, Lady’s Maid, Keeping the World Away is an evocative and exquisitely drawn tale that deftly portrays the lives of six unusual women and what it costs to be both a woman and an artist.
“an apparently simple yet potent work of art” – New York Times Book Review
Last Summer of the World by Emily Mitchell
W.W. Norton
Written with historical sensitivity and precision, this debut novel captures the past memories of the famous American photographer, Edward Steichen and the present day insanity of World War I as he arrives in France to photograph the war for the American army. The author skillfully exposes the conflicted life of this great American artist caught in the reckoning of a painful past in a world being torn apart by war.
“absorbing, (her) novel is the real thing.” - Boston Globe
Lottery by Patricia Wood
Penguin
In this charming and poignant debut novel, PacNW author Patricia Wood , writes in deliberately simple sentences about Perry L. Crandall, a young man who describes himself as “not retarded just slow” and has suffered from a goodly share of hard knocks. Thrown away by his ill-functioning mother, ignored by other relatives, raised by his loving grandparents who are now deceased, he has tried to fashion a safe world within which he can function at his own careful speed. Then he wins the $12 million dollar Washington State Lottery. With his middle initial standing for Lucky, Perry forges ahead through all the varied reactions from his money grubbing relatives, supported by friends who treat him the same with or without money, and faces his new life with simplicity and trust.
“a wryly gentle tale told in simple, lovely language” - New Orleans Times Picayune
My Mother’s Lovers by Christopher Hope
Grove Atlantic
Whitbread Prize winner and Man Booker finalist and author to more than twelve novels including Kruger’s Alp, Christopher Hope has crafted an electrifying story, set in and about Africa, and inhabited by a larger-than- life female character, Kathleen Healey who is passionate, comic and cruel by turns as she lives life to the fullest right to her end. Following her death, her only son returns to South Africa to carry out her final wishes and finds himself in the middle of incredible tasks that he strives to complete. Darkly funny, and outrageously inventive, My Mother’s Lovers shows how the hunger to be loved and to belong affects us all.
“grave and tender, savage and noble” – The Guardian
Night Train To Lisbon by Pascal Mercier
Grove Atlantic
A huge international bestseller and winner of multiple awards, The Night Train To Lisbon is a mesmerizing, philosophical tale of repression, resistance and the universal human struggle to connect. A chance encounter with an enigmatic Portuguese woman leads Raimund Gregorius, a quiet teacher of classical languages at a Swiss school to question his life of routine---and leads him to discover an extraordinary book by Amadeu de Prado, a highly ethical Portuguese doctor, that will cause him to drastically change his existence. Within 24 hours, he quits his 30 year teaching position and debarks on a train to Lisbon in search of answers to the mystery behind Prado and his past battle against the repressive power of the Portuguese dictator, Antonio Salazar. Gregorius finds himself exposed to an extraordinary tale, centered around a group of people working in utmost secrecy to fight dictatorship and the betrayals that threaten to expose them.
“labyrinth of memories and philosophical concepts that illuminate”- SF Chronicle
Not Yet Drown’d by Peg Kingman
W.W. Norton
Set in the 1820’s, this poignantly written debut novel tells the story of a young Scottish widow, Catherine MacDonald, who finds herself driven on a perilous quest around the world to India following the arrival of a mysterious package from her recently drowned twin brother. The contents of the package—a kashmiri shawl, a caddy of unusual tea and a sheaf of traditional bagpipe music that he had mysteriously retitled, irresistibly draws her to embark to India to search for answers. With her stepdaughter, two unusual maids in tow, Catherine follows an obscure trail of tea, opium and bagpipe music and discovers some unsuspected truths about the man she is seeking in this absorbing and lively yarn.
“smart and full of atmosphere” – Boston Globe
One Vacant Chair by Joe Coomer
Macmillan
By the author of Pocketful of Names, Loop, Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God and Sailing in a Spoonful of Water, comes a hilarious and poignant novel about the fragile business of living and dying. Two women, Aunt Edna and her niece Sarah , find themselves with the task of fulfilling the final and surprising wish of Edna’s dead mother to have her ashes scattered in Scotland. Living with and caring for her ill mother for over twenty years, Edna had become a painter of portraits of chairs---not people in chairs but empty chairs and now, with her niece’s help, decides it is time to clean up her old life as she looks towards her secretive future. Moving from the heat of Texas to the misty beauty of Scotland, Sarah learns of her aunt’s remarkable secret life and the creative art of being fully alive as she begins to understand the belief that “It’s where you sit down that determines everything in life.”
”a marvelously creative comic writer” – Washington Times
On Kingdom Mountain by Howard Frank Mosher
Houghton Mifflin
From the award-winning author of nine novels including Stranger in the Kingdom, The True Account, Disappearances and Waiting for Teddy Williams , On Kingdom Mountain returns the reader to Mosher’s fictional Vermont village of Kingdom Common as he tells the story of Miss Jane Hubbell Kinneson, a renowned local bookwoman, eccentric bird carver and the vigilant protector of a mountain that is being threatened by a Big Developer wanting to cut a swath through her property to build a highway to Canada. Filled with rich and quirky characters, daring action scenes, whimsical humor, along with a surprising love affair, this pleasurable yarn represents storytelling at its best.
“an authentic, most illuminating and rewarding writer” – author, Jeffrey Lent
Rest of Her Life by Laura Moriarty
Harper Collins
The author of Book Sense pick The Center of Everything has written a story about a tragic mistake and its effect on two families and their entire community. Rest of Her Life is a redemptive look at how even mothers and daughters with the best intentions can be blind to the damage they inflict upon one another. Filled with multifaceted characters and a page turning plot, it is a novel about a complex moral dilemma that makes even the reader ask themselves, “What would I do?” in the same situation.
“well-written, convincing and impossible to put down” –Kirkus Review
Rope Walk by Carrie Brown
Random House
Rope Walk is a poignant and subtle tale of profound friendship between 10 year old Alice and two visitors to her small Vermont town: Theo, a young African American friend of the family and Kenneth, an artist with AIDS who has returned home to convalesce. Alice and Theo form a bond that changes both and challenges others in the town as they go about befriending Kenneth. Their good intentions lead to surprising consequences in this moving story of a young woman gracefully coming into her own and her awareness of the world surrounding her.
“reading this novel is a serious pleasure”- New Orleans Times-Picayune
Run by Ann Patchett
Harper Collins
From the Pen/Faulkner and Orange Award winning author of six titles including the highly acclaimed Bel Canto, Patron Saint of Liars and The Magician’s Assistant, comes a new novel that highlights how worlds of privilege and poverty can co-exist only blocks apart from either, and how the makeup of a family can include the most unlikely relationships. Taking place over a 24 hour period, Run is a story about secrets, duty, responsibility and the lengths people will go to protect their children.
“moving and provocative” – Washington Post
Salt by Jeremy Page
Penguin
This extraordinary and fascinating debut novel explores the relationship between people and the landscape in which they live. Salt tells the story of a German airman who in 1945 lands in the middle of a salt marsh in England and is taken in by a local woman named Goose. After nine months, he vanishes in a makeshift boat leaving behind Goose and a newborn daughter, Lil who grows into a curious and strange child. Fifteen years later, Lil’s son, Pip attempts to make sense of his family’s intriguing past and the effect living in the salt marshes has had on his family and the generations before them.
“thrilling and memorable.” – Los Angeles Times
Secrets of the Sea by Nicholas Shakespeare
Harper Collins
Author of five novels including The Dancer Upstairs and a highly acclaimed biography of Bruce Chatwin, Nicholas Shakespeare has written a tender, funny and heart-wrenching love story about two young newlyweds, Alex and Merridy Dove struggling to build a family and a home on the coast of the Tasman Sea. A sudden shipwreck off their shore forces them to take in a fierce teenage castaway with a dangerous history, and all at once they are faced with coming to grips with the tangled memories of their individual pasts and face much deeper questions about what fulfillment truly means.
“remarkable…brilliantly successful…one of our best” – Literary Review
The Shadow Catcher by Marianne Wiggins
Simon & Schuster
The award-winning author of eight novels including Evidence of Things Unseen has seamlessly interwoven the story of Edward Curtis, the 20th century famous photographer of Native American tribes and his muse-wife Clara with a current day narrative of redemption, told in first person and based on the life of the author’s own father in this verbally stunning exploration of history and family, landscape and legacy. Including selected Edward Curtis photos enhances the sense of history within a story, fiction laced with fact or as described by one writer—fictive memoir?
“a writer who paints elegant pictures with words” - Booklist
Song Before It Is Sung by Justin Cartwright
Macmillan
From the Booker Prize nominee and 1998 Whitbread Prize winner for Leading the Cheers, comes a sweeping novel, based on true events, about the nature of human freedom and human passion. Following a failed assassination attempt, Hitler located the main conspirators and had them hanged, one of whom was Axel, Count von Gottberg. Sixty years later, a former student of one of Axel’s most trusted friends, is left some of his personal papers and finds himself drawn into a web of jealousy, passion, and betrayal. As he searches for the truth, he comes to realize the complexity of the relationship between the two friends.
“sensitive and elegiac…give yourself a treat and read it.” – Boston Globe
Songs Without Words by Ann Packer
Random House
The bestselling author of Dive from Clausen’s Pier and Mendocino and Other Stories has written a gripping story of a life-long friendship pushed to the breaking point. As childhood friends, Liz and Sarabeth are brought even closer together following the suicide of Sarabeth’s mother when they are just sixteen. Through the following decades, their mutually supportive friendship remains a constant in their lives until Liz’s young daughter’s dangerous behavior terrifies her family. Their friendship takes a devastating turn that forces the two women to question the depth and complexity of the bonds between them.
“a second novel of moral complexity.” – New York Times
Surveillance by Jonathan Raban
Random House
From the award winning author of Badland, Passage to Juneau, Hunting Mister Heartbreak and Waxwings, comes a tale set in the not-too-distant future, where national identity cards are mandatory and intelligence gathering has become an obsession. In Seattle, an unfulfilled actor, Tad performs mostly in the Department of Homeland Security’s fictional disaster scenarios while his neighbor, Lucy struggles to support her 11 year old daughter on a freelance journalist’s salary. When, during an assignment to profile a retired professor and his bestselling memoir of World War II experiences, Lucy begins to question the validity of his account, she enters our new world of paranoia. Everyone is under surveillance or conducting it. To whom shall we entrust the rendering of the moments we live –the artist or the journalist? What is the distinction between what might be true and what actually is happening in a time of personal stress and widespread panic?
“one of our most insightful novelists” – New Statesman
Tomorrow by Graham Swift
Random House
Booker Prize winning author of Last Orders and seven other novels, Graham Swift has written a quiet meditation on the mystery of happiness in this brilliant tale about the closest of human bonds-the bond of parentage. Distilling 50 years of living in one night’s musing, Paula Hook lies awake next to her husband of 25 years with her teenage twins asleep in the next room. She knows the next day will redefine all of their lives when a secret is revealed by them to their children. Throughout the night, Paula examines, in a circular mental self telling, the story behind the years before and after the birth of her children in this celebration of love possessed and the acknowledgement of the secrets on which our very own identities rest.
“writer of great range, vigor and acuity” – New York Times Book Review
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
Macmillan
The Uncommon Reader is a subtle, delicious little book that unfolds into a witty meditation on the “subversive pleasures of reading.” Written by one of England’s greatest essayist and playwright, this funny novella is a “what if”ode to the power of literature to change even the most uncommon reader’s life. Previous titles by Bennett include History Boys and The Clothes They Stood Up In, and the play The Madness of George III.
“a marvelous satire” – Boston Globe
The Used World by Haven Kimmel
Simon & Schuster
From the author of the memoir, A Girl Named Zippy and a number of novels, including Iodine and Solace of Leaving Early comes a heartrending and hilarious story that explores the pull of family, history and spirituality, and the many meanings of the place we call home. At the heart of this story is the relationship between Hazel, a 60 plus year old and owner of the Used World Emporium antique store and two of her oddball employees, Claudia who is freakishly tall and very lonely, and Rebekah pushing 30 years old, still living at home and carrying the child of the man who broke her heart is the heart of this story. As the threesome discover that they are not only bound to each other by the past but with the arrival of two babies into their lives, their used world turns new again.
“fierce, funny, compassionate novel of grit and faith” – Raleigh News & Observer
Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell
Harcourt
The author of My Lover’s Lover and After You’d Gone, has written a haunting multi-generational, slightly gothic tale of how women were and are treated and perceived. In this world of family secrets and betrayal, Iris, a young single woman living a relatively uncomplicated life in Edinburgh finds out that her grandmother’s sister, Esme has been living in an asylum for 61 years. The asylum has deemed Esme “safe “ to leave and contacts Iris to make Esme’s new living arrangements. To the horror of her brother, Alex and her married lover, Iris decides to bring Esme home to live with her. Interspersed amongst the story plot are the rambling thoughts of Esme’s sister, Kitty who suffers from Alzheimer’s but remembers the past quite clearly. Filled with twists and turns, this is a quiet but gripping story about life-altering secrets and the treatment of women done under the guise of mental health.
“a breathtaking, heart-breaking creation” – Boston Globe
What Was Lost by Catherine O’Flynn
Henry Holt
Long-listed for the Booker Prize, Orange Prize and The Guardian First Book Award, this tender and exceptionally insightful debut novel is the story of Kate, a curious and spirited young “junior detective”, her friend Adrian and his subsequent hounding from the town as he falls under suspicion and the twenty year aftermath following Kate’s mysterious disappearance from the Green Oaks shopping mall in the early 1980’s. In 2003, Adrian’s sister, while working in the same shopping mall becomes entranced by a little girl glimpsed on the mall’s surveillance camera and begins to investigate how these sightings might be connected to the unsettling past.
“an exceptional novel written with humor and pathos” – The Guardian
When We Were Bad by Charlotte Mendelson
Houghton Mifflin
A debut novel that humorously explores the bonds of family and the heavy weight of great expectations, When We Were Bad features the outwardly perfect Rubin family:brilliant, successful, and enviably close-knit. Then an event that should be of great joy and celebration --the marriage of the eldest son --turns into utter chaos when the groom jilts his bride and runs off with a married woman. In the wake of this act of defiance, the floodgates of ruinous gossip are opened and even the secrets that the entire family have kept from each other coming pouring forth. Written with warmth, the author gives the reader a poignant and honest picture of a family in “crisis, in love, in denial, and ultimately, in luck.”
“entertaining, intelligent…a funny, humane novel” –Boston Globe
Widow’s War by Sally Gunning
Harper Collins
Set in a small New England whaling town in 1761, Widow’s War poignantly tells the story of one woman’s battle against societal and legal pressures to conform as she defies her family, friends and neighbors in a fight for her freedom that resonates even today. Following the death of her husband in a whaling disaster, Lyddie Berry finds her status as a widow vastly changed. Her son-in-law has more legal rights over her home and possessions than she and sets out to strip her of everything. But she fights back against him and other town members as she finds that she values her personal freedom, her sense of autonomy more than her fear of estrangement from those she loves and the town she lives in. Full of rich, realistic characters and a sense of time and place, the author has written a timeless story of a woman’s longing to belong while she fights to understand herself and sustain her own sense of self.
“a masterful new voice in historical fiction” – author, Geraldine Brooks
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