The Redeemed

A stirring, exquisitely rendered tale of homecoming; the final instalment in Tim Pears's epic West Country TrilogySelected as a book of 2019 by the Guardian, Scotsman and The TimesIt is 1916. The world has gone to war, and young Leo Sercombe, hauling coal aboard the HMS Queen Mary, is a long way from home. The wild, unchanging West Country roads of his boyhood seem very far away from life aboard a battlecruiser, a universe of well-oiled steel, of smoke and spray and sweat, where death seems never more than a heartbeat away.Skimming through those West Country roads on her motorcycle, Lottie Prideaux defies the expectations of her class and sex as she covertly studies to be a vet. But the steady rhythms of Lottie's practice, her comings and goings between her neighbours and their animals, will be blown apart by a violent act of betrayal, and a devastating loss.In a world torn asunder by war, everything dances in flux: how can the old ways...