After River

Until she was 15 Natalie Ward believed her world was perfect and that her family would always be together on the small dairy farm carved out of a remote mountain valley in Southern British Columbia. Then came River the American draft dodger who became her familys hired hand the summer that a new highway opened the valley to the larger world beyond. But thirty-five years after Rivers arrival the Ward family is shattered. With her mother dying Natalie must return to the home she has spent her entire adult life running from as the familys dark secrets and betrayals threaten to scar a new generation. Evoking Mary Lawsons Crow Lake and Carol Shields Unless Milner renders characters who are achingly human and plots a story with masterful precision. After River eloquently captures the moral and social upheavals of the late 60s and marks the emergence of a dazzling Canadian talent.