After River - Donna Milner
Title: After River
Author: Donna Milner
Genre: Drama
Read it if you like: Quality.
Rating: 5/5
Notes: A beautiful book from start to finish. Longlisted for the 2010 International IMPAC Dublin Literary award.
This book hit me in the feels so much I just had to race here and let you know about it. It's a wonderful story with a bit of everything. The best book I've read all year. Get yourself a copy and pass it around!
Growing up on a dairy farm in the mountains of British Columbia in the 1960s, just three miles north of the American border, Natalie Ward knew little of the outside world. But she had her family, a family so close and loving that Natalie believed they were the envy of the nearby town of Atwood - particularly her eldest brother Boyer, whom Natalie held especially close to her heart.
But Natalie began to question her family’s idyllic existence the summer she turned fifteen. The arrival of a soft-spoken stranger, an American draft-dodger called River, would test the morals and beliefs of the family and the community to breaking point. The series of events following that summer day would leave relationships shattered and the Ward family changed forever.