Run to the Western Shore: Surprising, poignant, elemental novel from award-winning author

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Description

Britain, AD 75.

Quintus, long exiled from his people, has travelled great odysseys in the retinue of a powerful Roman. Though a citizen of nowhere, is a man of reason, fluent in many languages. Olwen, imperious tribal royalty, is rooted in her native land - a volatile warrior, fiercely attached to the natural world.

Given away by her father as part of a peace treaty, Olwen flees during the night, taking Quintus with her. Hunted by an army, the two make their way across the country, living off the land, heading for the western shore...

Reviews

'An enchanting novel in which Tim Pears conjures up characters of great subtlety and grace: Olwen, a fierce and courageous warrior seeks to out run fate and the might of the Roman governor with Quintus, her thoughtful, wistful lover. Pears weaves a compelling tale of escape through the magical beauty and mystery of the Silures tribe, their legends and their landscape' - Alicia Drake, author of I Love You Too Much


'A remarkable book ... history, philosophy, nature writing at its best - and masterful storytelling' - Debora Harding, author of Dancing with the Octopus


'The events in this book, as in all the others, take place in the Pearzone - a dimension I myself have never experienced but elements of which I long to be able to share. It can be a place of brutality and heartbreak, yet it offers to those who live there at least glimpses of alternative, less irksome ways of negotiating life. Reading Tim Pears always reminds me that we don't have to be ignoble' - Haydn Middleton, author of The Ballad of Syd and Nancy


Praise for Tim Pears

'A literary novelist who beautifully expresses the old ways of England...equally adept at writing action and romance' - The Times

'Pears is a wonderful storyteller with a truly remarkable sense of time and place' - Scotsman

'Pears could not write an ugly sentence if he tried' - Mail on Sunday

'A gifted storyteller, steeped in country lore and the beauty of ordinary events' - New York Times

Author Bio

Tim Pears is a Lannan Prize-winning author and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His books include In the Place of Fallen Leaves (winner of the Hawthornden Prize and the Ruth Hadden Memorial Award), In A Land of Plenty (made into a ten-part BBC series), Landed (shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, winner of the MJA Open Book Awards), and The West Country Trilogy.