Author: Wood, Charlotte

New South Wales

Published on 7 March 2024 by Hodder & Stoughton (Sceptre) in the United Kingdom.

Hardback | 320 pages
164 x 241 x 30 | 520g

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024: THE NEW NOVEL BY THE AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE WEEKENDA Guardian Book of the Summer 2024A Book of the Year for the Sydney Morning Herald and ABCShortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award Shortlisted for The Age Book of the Year Shortlisted for the ABIA Award for Literary Fiction Longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award 'A beautiful, mature work that does not flinch from life'SUNDAY TIMES'A book about what it means to be good: simply and with great humility, it asks the big questions, leaving the reader feeling kinder, more brave, enlarged'ANNE ENRIGHT, author of The Wren, The Wren 'I have rarely been so absorbed by a novel . . . A powerful, generous book'GUARDIAN'Beautiful, strange and otherworldly'PAULA HAWKINS, bestselling author of A Slow Fire Burning'It extends and deepens Wood's already remarkable achievements as a novelist in powerful and often profound ways'SATURDAY PAPER'Both profound and addictively entertaining. I loved it'CLARE CHAMBERS, bestselling author of Small Pleasures'Extraordinary . . . a stunning work of fiction from a major writer who keeps getting better'AUSTRALIAN 'Remarkable . . . I'm still trying to figure out how she pulled it off. The best thing she's done'TIM WINTON, author of The Shepherd's Hut'No words can quite convey how much I loved this book'KAREN JOY FOWLER, author of BoothBurnt out and in need of retreat, a middle-aged woman leaves Sydney to return to the place she grew up, taking refuge in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of the Australian outback. She doesn't believe in God, or know what prayer is, and finds herself living this strange, reclusive existence almost by accident.

But disquiet interrupts this secluded life with three visitations. First comes a terrible mouse plague, each day signalling a new battle against the rising infestation. Second is the return of the skeletal remains of a sister who disappeared decades before, presumed murdered. And finally, a troubling visitor plunges the narrator further back into her past.

PRAISE FOR CHARLOTTE WOOD'S THE WEEKEND A Sunday Times 'Best Book for Summer 2021'A Times, Observer, Independent, Daily Express and Good Housekeeping Book of the Year'So great I am struggling to find the words to do it justice . . . Wood is an agonisingly gifted writer. I am now going to read all her other books'MARIAN KEYES'A rare pleasure'SUNDAY TIMES'A perfect, funny, insightful novel about women, friendship and ageing'NINA STIBBE'Glorious . . . Charlotte Wood joins the ranks of writers such as Nora Ephron, Penelope Lively and Elizabeth Strout'GUARDIAN'Riveting'ELIZABETH DAY'Triumphantly brings to life the honest inner lives of women'INDEPENDENT'A lovely, lively, intelligent, funny book'TESSA HADLEY