The Innocents

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Michael Christie

It's 1974 and Willow Greenwood is out of jail, free after being locked up for one of her endless series of environmental protests: attempts at atonement for the sins of her father's once vast and violent timber empire. It's 1934 and Everett Greenwood is alone, as usual, in his maple syrup camp squat when he hears the cries of an abandoned infant and gets tangled up in the web of a crime that will cling to his family for decades. And throughout, there are trees: thrumming a steady, silent pulse beneath Christie's effortless sentences and working as a guiding metaphor for withering, weathering, and survival. A shining, intricate clockwork of a novel, Greenwood is a rain-soaked and sun-dappled story of the bonds and breaking points of money and love, wood and blood—and the hopeful, impossible task of growing toward the light.

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Gabriel García Márquez

Strange pilgrims is a celebrated work by Gabriel García Márquez (Nobel Laureate), recognized for masterclass storytelling and lasting literary resonance.

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Jonathan Buckley

On losing her father, Teresa returns to a small town on the Greek coast – the same place she visited when grieving her mother nine years ago. She immerses herself again in the life of the town, observing the inhabitants going about their business, a quiet backdrop for her reckoning with herself. An episode from her first visit resurfaces vividly – her encounter with John, a man struggling to come to terms with the violent death of his nephew. Soon Teresa encounters some of the people she met last time Petros, an eccentric mechanic, whose life story may or may not be part of John's; the beautiful Niko, a diving instructor; and Xanthe, a waitress in one of the cafés on the leafy town square. They talk about their longings, regrets, the passing of time, their sense of who they are. Artfully constructed, absorbing and insightful, One Boat is a brilliant novel grappling with questions of identity, free will, guilt and responsibility.

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Wayne Johnston

Set in the late nineteenth century, "A World Elsewhere" is an intricately woven tale of humour and emotion, of family and friendship, of ambition and destitution. At its centre is Landish Druken, son of a Newfoundland sealing captain, who turns his back on family tradition and wishes to become a writer. Well-mannered and eloquent, Landish sets off from St John's to Princeton University, where he is befriended by 'Van' Vanderluyden, son of the wealthiest man in America, and later betrayed by him. Landish is banished from Princeton and his hopes crumble. Returning to St John's, he adopts Deacon, an orphan, the son of his father's first mate. Outcast, fighting off destitution, Landish raises Deacon alone, with no tools other than trust, humour and compassion. But when poverty casts them out of their home, there is only one person left to turn to: Van. They make the long journey to North Carolina, where Van has built Vanderland, a huge, magnificent castle. There they are swiftly pulled into a world of deception and murder, and the mettle of the exceptional Landish, and the bond with his adopted son, is truly tested. This is a novel of great invention and emotional intensity, "A World Elsewhere" is unexpected and extraordinary, and a work emblematic of Wayne Johnston's brilliance.