An Oprah's Book Club Pick

“The comparisons with Elizabeth Strout stand up. So too might ones to Ann Patchett, Claire Keegan, Marilynne Robinson and Annie Proulx for a captivating portrayal of a community and its characters, drawn with humane understanding, empathy, and humour.” —The Times

Winter in the small Canadian town of Solace is a season of hibernation. But this year, the snowfall brings a series of accidental encounters that will shake up the lives—and loves—of an old man, a student on the run and an abandoned dog.

It is deep winter, 1969. As the Vietnam War drives young men north across the Canadian border, widower Jack’s quiet life is overturned by two accidents that happen on the bend in the road into town. First comes a dog in a bad way. Next a draft dodger, seriously injured, lying in the snow. Suddenly, Jack’s cabin is busy with a growing cast of characters—and all the baggage, dreams and desires they’re carrying.

The atmosphere chills when Jack’s daughter Sally drops by one day and doesn’t like what she sees. What Sally does next changes everything, for everyone but herself.

This exquisite snow globe of a novel is a refuge, a story of connection and moral complexity set in the beloved world of Mary Lawson’s bestselling, prize-winning Crow Lake, The Other Side of the Bridge, Road Ends and A Town Called Solace.