The Cure For Death By Lightning

Description

The remote Turtle Valley in British Columbia is home to fifteen-year-old Beth Weeks and a community of eccentric but familiar characters. There, amidst a stunning landscape of purple swallows and green skies, strange and unsettling events occur: children go missing, a girl is mauled by a crazy bear and Beth too is being pursued... The Cure for Death by Lightning is a rich and thrilling novel, as filled with strange deeds and dark fears as with beauty and magic.

Prize-winning author Gail Anderson-Dargatz lives on a farm in Western Canada with her husband. Virago have contracted to publish her next two novels.

'An endearing coming-of-age first novel...remarkably tasty' FAY WELDON, MAIL ON SUNDAY 'I loved it from the first page, she's fluent and graceful and there's passion and tension, in fact all I want from a novel. The writing is so powerful and yet shows a restraint that tightens the whole atmosphere. An excellent read - I was gripped' MARGARET FORSTER 'Some novelists tiptoe. Not Gail Anderson-Dargatz. She makes her debut in full stride, breaking all the rules' BOSTON SUNDAY GLOBE 'An alluring mix of the domestic and the darkly magical...skilled and subtle...storytelling verve, gorgeous descriptive evocations, passages of quiet lyricism, high suspense and hints of the supernatural' SCOTSMAN 'An enthralling debut' THE INDEPENDENT 'A charming, thoughtful and absorbing book' NEW WOMAN 'A very fine first novel, rich in character and flavour' TLS 'Celebrates the guts and fortitude of women in the face of the everyday unspeakable' THE TIMES 'An irrestistible read' ELLE 'Horribly gripping' THE SUNDAY TIMES 'A terrific book. You can trace a line to it from Susanna Moodie through Margaret Atwood...unsparing sharpness reminiscent of Alice Munro' GLOBE AND MAIL 'A sweet'n'sour portrayal of the landscape, stories and people of a very different part of Canada...a rich, absorbing stew of a book' OBSERVER