A fearless exploration of forgiveness, grief and the complicated beauty of female friendship. 

Burnt 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.

A book of the year for the Sydney Morning Herald and ABC

‘Both profound and addictively entertaining. I loved it’ – Clare Chambers, bestselling author of Small Pleasures

‘A masterful novel of quiet force’ – The Guardian 

‘Beautiful, strange and otherworldly’ – Paula Hawkins, bestselling author of A Slow Fire Burning

‘The consistently brilliant Wood delivers yet again’ – Sydney Morning Herald 

‘It’s 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

‘Magnificent and radical . . . It gripped me from the opening line to the very last’ – Age

‘No words can quite convey how much I loved this book’ – Karen Joy Fowler, author of Booth

‘Extraordinary . . . a stunning work of fiction from a major writer who keeps getting better’ – Australian 

‘Subtly powerful and utterly engrossing’ – Claire Fuller, bestselling author of Unsettled Ground

‘It extends and deepens Wood’s already remarkable achievements as a novelist in powerful and often profound ways’ – Saturday Paper