First published 2023
A woman walks away from her city marriage and returns to the stark Monaro plains where she grew up. She joins a small religious community, though she carries no faith and understands nothing of prayer. This reclusive existence happens almost by chance. She settles into the daily patterns of monastic life while memories of her childhood town surface repeatedly. Her mother's early death weighs heavily on her thoughts. Three disruptions shatter the monastery's peace. A mouse plague spreads through the buildings, demanding daily battles against the infestation. The skeletal remains of a former sister arrive for burial. This woman had left decades earlier to help vulnerable women in Thailand before vanishing, likely murdered. A disturbing visitor then appears, dragging the narrator back toward her buried past. These events force her to confront fundamental questions about goodness, forgiveness, and whether grief ever truly ends.
Genres: literary-fiction, domestic-fiction, contemporary, adult, adult-fiction, psychological-thriller
Vibes: atmospheric, emotionally-complex, haunting, introspective, meditative, unsettling
Tropes: found-family, internal-conflict, past-resurfaces, return-to-hometown
Setting: Monaro Plains, Thailand
Period: Contemporary, Decades prior (flashback)
297 pages · Paperback · Allen and Unwin
Content warnings: death, murder