Description

‘Astonishingly brilliant. My book of the year.’ Liz Nugent, Sunday Times-bestselling author of Strange Sally Diamond

For fans of Emily St John Mandel and Kazuo Ishiguro, an exhilarating novel about an isolated town neighboured by its own past and future, and a young girl who faces an impossible choice…

Would you sacrifice the future for love?

Sixteen-year-old Odile vies for a coveted seat on an elite council that decides who may cross her town’s heavily guarded borders. To the east, the town is twenty years ahead in time. To the west, it’s twenty years behind. The towns repeat in an endless sequence across the wilderness.

When Odile recognizes two visitors she wasn’t supposed to see, she realizes that the parents of her friend Edme have been escorted across the border from the future, on a mourning tour, to view their son while he’s still alive in Odile’s present.

Edme-who is brilliant, funny, and the only person to truly know Odile-is going to die. Sworn to secrecy to preserve the timeline, Odile now becomes the top candidate. Yet she finds herself drawing closer to the doomed boy, jeopardizing the future and her place in it.

Publisher Review

Astonishingly brilliant. My book of the year * Liz Nugent, Sunday Times-bestselling author of Strange Sally Diamond * A stellar debut, full of heartbreak and hope wrapped up in gorgeous prose. Scott Alexander Howard is one to watch * Christina Dalcher, author of Vox * Part Ishiguro, part Amis, and somehow all its own, The Other Valley marks the debut of a phenomenally talented writer. Pay attention * Sarah Langan, author of Good Neighbors * The Other Valley is a complex and elegiac exploration of humanity and our relationship with time. Told through tender and thoughtful prose, Howard's novel leaves you wondering about the choices you've made in your life, and whether you'd do them differently if you had the chance. It is a tale of loss, of hope, and of possibility. It is a book that will stay with you, if not for its questions about fate and consequence, then for its quiet and moving depiction of love and grief. I loved it. * Nicholas Binge, author of Ascension * Brilliantly conceived. The voice is accomplished and nuanced, and the story is a page-turner with a blistering climax. An astonishing debut * Jan Zwicky, author of Songs for Relinquishing the Earth * What a stunning debut. This coming-of-age story is filled to the brim with heart and hope and Howard's prose is simply breathtaking. The Other Valley is a brilliant take on time travel and a thought-provoking exploration of the boundaries between fate and choice. Make room on your shelves, folks, this book is going to knock your socks off. * Sylvain Neuvel, award-winning author of Sleeping Giants * Thoughtful, touching and beautiful, The Other Valley is an accomplished and exquisitely crafted novel. Scott Alexander Howard takes readers into a unique world they are sure to remember, and introduces them to Odile, a fascinating character with an unenviable dilemma * Adam Hamdy, author of The Other Side of Night * 'A breathtaking meditation on grief and the fluidity of time, told in elegant, precise prose, and which speeds to an audacious ending * Kerry Andrew, author of We Are Together Because * In The Other Valley, Scott Alexander Howard takes an ingenious conceit and wraps it in a story of teenage love to explore eternal questions about second chances and predestination. Howard's novel is sensitively written, propulsively plotted, and unforgettable * Kevin Chong, Scotiabank Giller-Prize finalist of The Double Life of Benson Yu * The Other Valley is as riveting as it is philosophically beautiful. Scott Alexander Howard asks us to imagine how we might live if our older and younger selves weren't lost to us, but waited for us somewhere. While the premise is uniquely speculative, the sensation of being stranded between the ambitious optimism of youth and the clouded uncertainty of the future is gorgeously familiar. Powerful and atmospheric, Howard's novel is one I hope to reread at different stages of my life * Sara Flannery Murphy, author of Girl One and The Wonder State * The Other Valley comprises three novels, all of them equally enthralling. It is a satisfyingly-detailed philosophical thought experiment; a moving, intensely-poignant love story, and a masterful, slow-burning suspense novel. It lingers in the mind in the best way, and sits comfortably beside Ishiguro, Ted Chiang and Murakami on an ideal bookshelf. * Jo Harkin, author of Tell Me an Ending *