The Stone Road
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the Aurealis Award for Best Horror Novel
Finalist for the Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novel
Finalist for the Australian Shadow Awards for Best Novel
With the lyrical cadence of The Last Unicorn and intense imagery of A Wizard of Earthsea, The Stone Road is a timeless story of hope, belonging, and growing into your power.
Award-winning Australian author Trent Jamieson presents a haunting rural fantasy where the dead speak beneath your feet and twisted monsters hunger for their lost humanity.
On the day Jean was born, the dead howled. A thin scratch of black smoke began to rise behind the hills west of town: Furnace had been lit, and soon its siren call began to draw the people of Casement Rise to it, never to return.
Casement Rise is a dusty town at the end of days, a harsh world of grit and arcane dangers. While Jean’s stern, overprotective Nan has always kept Casement Rise safe from monsters, she may have waited too long to teach Jean how to face them on her own. On Jean’s twelfth birthday, a mysterious graceful man appears, an ethereal and terrifying being tied to her family’s secrets.
Now, Nan must rush Jean’s education in monsters, magic, and the breaking of the world in ages past. If Jean is to combat the graceful man and finally understand the ancient evil that powers Furnace, she will have to embrace her legacy, endure her Nan’s lessons, and learn all she can—before Furnace burns down her world and everyone in it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Jamieson (Day Boy) builds a complicated and somewhat muddled mythology in this slow-moving fantasy set in a post-oil dystopia. On the day Jean March is born in small-town Casement Rise, an otherworldly fire called the Furnace starts burning nearby, slowly luring people from town to its flames. Jean grows up isolated from school by her alcoholic mother, Ella, and coddled by her stern grandmother, Nancy, whose nightly protective walks and subtle magic keep the town safe from monsters. On Jean's 12th birthday, a visit from a strange man made of leaves convinces Nancy to start training Jean how to fight and survive. The novel then meanders through Jean's training, exploring her risky rescue of a peer from a magic tree, her visit to a limbo of lingering dead, and other tests of power and ability. When Nancy dies a violent, unexpected death, Jean becomes the town's sole protector amid growing threats and increasingly odd occurrences. Battles and challenges pass by quickly as the ever-expanding worldbuilding raises more questions than answers, cluttering out emotional impact. Patient readers wanting strong female protagonists may find something to enjoy here, but many will struggle to wade through this one.
