Advent

An epic, intimate novel that reeled me in and kept me... utterly engrossed Euros Lyn Bafta-winning tv and Film Director Fraser explores themes of womanhood, expectation, power, and identity with an unflinching eye. Her storytelling is brimming with truth and tension. Rebecca F. John Winter, 1904, and feisty twenty-one-year-old Ellen has been summoned back from her new life in Hoboken, New Jersey, to the family farm on windswept Gower, in a last bid to prevent the impending death of her alcoholic father. On her return, she finds the family in disarray. Ailing William is gambling away large swathes of Thomas land; frustrated Eleanor is mourning the husband she once knew; and Ellen's younger twin brothers face difficult choices. Ellen, tasked with putting her family's lives in order, finds herself battling one impossible decision after another. Resourceful, passionate, and forthright, can she remain in Gower, where being female still brings with it so many limitations? Can she endure being so close to her lost love? Will she choose home and duty, or excitement and opportunity across the Atlantic? An evocative, powerful novel which conjures up a strong sense of place with the lightest of brushstrokes. A tightly-woven narrative that lingers long in the mind. Fflur Dafydd This lovely, lovely novel has its own quiet and insistent music, beating to the daily rhythms of hard work even as it probes the way in which love can breed its own cruelties.Jon Gower