Stone Yard Devotional - Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2024

''A beautiful, mature work that does not flinch from life'' SUNDAY TIMES ''Both profound and addictively entertaining. I loved it'' CLARE CHAMBERS, bestselling author of Small Pleasures ''Its resonance is global . . . a powerful, generous book'' GUARDIAN ''Beautiful, strange and otherworldly'' PAULA HAWKINS, bestselling author of A Slow Fire Burning Burnt out and in need of retreat, a middle-aged woman leaves Sydney to return to the place she grew up, taking refuge in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of the Australian outback. She doesn''t believe in God, or know what prayer is, and finds herself living this strange, reclusive existence almost by accident. But disquiet interrupts this secluded life with three visitations. First comes a terrible mouse plague, each day signalling a new battle against the rising infestation. Second is the return of the skeletal remains of a sister who disappeared decades before, presumed murdered. And finally, a troubling visitor plunges the narrator further back into her past.

About the author

Charlotte Wood is the author of seven novels and three books of non-fiction. Her novel Stone Yard Devotional was shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize. Earlier novels include The Natural Way of Things, which won the 2016 Stella Prize and was joint winner of the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction, and The Weekend, which was an international bestseller. Her features and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Guardian, Literary Hub and Sydney Morning Herald, among others. Charlotte lives in Sydney with her husband.

Product details

• Authors: Charlotte Wood
• Publisher: Sceptre
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 22.05.2025
• EAN: 9781399724388
• ISBN: 978-1-399-72438-8
• No. of pages: 320
• Dimensions: 128 mm x 194 mm x 20 mm
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; New South Wales, FICTION / Women, FICTION / Family Life / General, FICTION / Literary, FICTION / Friendship, FICTION / Psychological, FICTION / Religious, FICTION / Small Town & Rural, Narrative theme: Interior life, Narrative theme: Death, grief, loss, Narrative theme: Sense of place, Narrative theme: Identity / belonging, Narrative theme: Environmental issues, Biographical fiction, Epistolary fiction, FICTION / World Literature / Australia