Description

‘One of my all-time favourite writers… utterly captivating’ GRAHAM NORTON
‘A beauty of a book’ RACHEL JOYCE
‘A masterpiece’ JOANNE HARRIS

Winter in the small Canadian town of Solace is a season of hibernation. But this year, the snowfall brings a series of accidental encounters that will shake up the lives and loves of some of its oldest and newest inhabitants

It is deep winter, 1969. As the Vietnam War drives young men north across the Canadian border, widower Jack’s quiet life is overturned by two accidents that happen on the bend in the road into town. First comes a dog in a bad way. Next a draft-dodger, seriously injured, lying in the snow. Suddenly, Jack’s cabin is busy with a growing cast of characters – and all the baggage, dreams and desires they’re carrying.

But the atmosphere chills when Jack’s daughter Sally drops by one day and doesn’t like what she sees…

This exquisite snow globe of a novel is a refuge, a story of connection and moral complexity set in the beloved world of Mary Lawson’s bestselling, prizewinning Crow Lake, The Other Side of the Bridge, Road Ends and A Town Called Solace.

Publisher Review

I don't know how she does it. I was so emotionally invested in these characters from the very first page. Mary Lawson has the rare ability to find extraordinary beauty and warmth in the most unexpected places. She's one of my all-time favourite writers... utterly captivating -- GRAHAM NORTON A beauty of a book... A vivid, gracious, quietly suspenseful and life-affirming novel about the complications of kindness, small-town thinking and an old man's discovery of new life just when he least expects it. I kept turning the pages, desperate to know how it would end. And oh! A dog to fall completely in love with. -- RACHEL JOYCE A wonderful book, written with a clear-eyed compassion and a fine eye for detail. A masterpiece of insight into what it means to be fully flawed and perfectly human. I loved it -- JOANNE HARRIS An out-and-out masterpiece; I was completely hooked after two pages -- CRESSIDA CONNOLLY