Kirjahaku

"A remarkable first novel, full of verve, beautifully written, and with all the panache of a great adventure." --Michael Ondaatje In 1903 a mysterious young woman flees alone across the West, one heart-pounding step ahead of the law. At 19, Mary Boulton has just become a widow--and her husband's killer. As bloodhounds track her frantic race toward the mountains, she is tormented by the knowledge that her two ruthless brothers-in-law are in pursuit, determined to avenge their younger brother's death. Responding to little more than the primitive fight for life, the widow retreats ever deeper into the wilderness--and into the wilds of her own mind--encountering an unforgettable cast of eccentrics along the way.With the stunning prose and captivating mood of great works like Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain or early Cormac McCarthy, Gil Adamson's intoxicating debut novel is the brilliant and gripping tale of one woman's desperate escape.

On a moonlit night in 1903, a mysterious young woman flees alone across the Canadian wilderness, one quick step ahead of her pursuers. Mary Boulton is nineteen years old, half mad, and widowed - by her own hand. Tearing through the forest with dogs howling in the distance, she is desperate, her nerves burning, and she is certain of one thing only - that her every move is being traced. Two red-headed brothers, rifles across their backs, lurch close behind her: monstrous figures, identical in every way, with the predatory look of hyenas. She has murdered their brother, and their cold lust for vengeance is unswerving. As the widow scrambles to stay ahead of them, the burden of her existence disintegrates into a battle in which the dangers of her own mind become more menacing than the dangers of the night. Along the way, the steely outlaw encounters a changing cast of misfits and eccentrics. Some, like the recluse known as 'The Ridgerunner', provide a brief respite from her solitude; others, like the Reverend Bonnycastle, offer support only to reveal that they too have their own demons raging inside. As she is plunged further away from civilisation, her path from retribution to redemption slowly unfurls. A startling transformation of the classic western narrative, The Outlander is the haunting tale of one young woman's deliberate journey deep into the wild.

Hazel is only a toddler when she sails back to Canada with her parents to begin a new life. As the boat dips and dives across the ocean and sends her bed crashing against the walls, Hazel wakes up to the tragic reality of the world around her. From then on, life seems a constant struggle as Hazel juggles with the miseries of childhood, while attempting to make sense of the odd bunch of grown-ups around her. After all, how much help can you expect from an uncle who collects only white animals, or a grandfather who drives around with a dead dog on the back seat of his convertible, when you have to confront your first day at school, the arrival of a baby brother or your parents' divorce? Still, life could be worse, thinks Hazel, she could be in the chess club, or have a name like Bogdana or Flower... In this haunting and extremely funny account of the world according to Hazel, Gil Adamson's first work of fiction, written twn years ago and published now for the first time in the UK, reminds us that although growing up is about sorting out life as it is, from life as it should be, stories will always be there to help us pretend.

Part literary Western and part historical mystery, Ridgerunner is the follow-up to Gil Adamson's award-winning and critically acclaimed novel The Outlander.November 1917. William Moreland is in mid-flight. After nearly twenty years, the notorious thief, known as the Ridgerunner, has returned. Moving through the Rocky Mountains and across the border to Montana, the solitary drifter, impoverished in means and aged beyond his years, is also a widower and a father. And he is determined to steal enough money to secure his son's future.Twelve-year-old Jack Boulton has been left in the care of Sister Beatrice, a formidable nun who keeps him in cloistered seclusion in her grand old house. Though he knows his father is coming for him, the boy longs to return to his family's cabin, deep in the woods. When Jack finally breaks free, he takes with him something the nun is determined to get back -- at any cost.Set against the backdrop of a distant war raging in Europe and a rapidly changing landscape in the West, Gil Adamson's follow-up to her award-winning debut, The Outlander, is a vivid historical novel that draws from the epic tradition and a literary Western brimming with a cast of unforgettable characters touched with humour and loss, and steeped in the wild of the natural world.

Part literary Western and part historical mystery, Ridgerunner is the follow-up to Gil Adamson's award-winning and critically acclaimed novel The Outlander.November 1917. William Moreland is in mid-flight. After nearly twenty years, the notorious thief, known as the Ridgerunner, has returned. Moving through the Rocky Mountains and across the border to Montana, the solitary drifter, impoverished in means and aged beyond his years, is also a widower and a father. And he is determined to steal enough money to secure his son's future.Twelve-year-old Jack Boulton has been left in the care of Sister Beatrice, a formidable nun who keeps him in cloistered seclusion in her grand old house. Though he knows his father is coming for him, the boy longs to return to his family's cabin, deep in the woods. When Jack finally breaks free, he takes with him something the nun is determined to get back -- at any cost.Set against the backdrop of a distant war raging in Europe and a rapidly changing landscape in the West, Gil Adamson's follow-up to her award-winning debut, The Outlander, is a vivid historical novel that draws from the epic tradition and a literary Western brimming with a cast of unforgettable characters touched with humour and loss, and steeped in the wild of the natural world.