Advent _ Hono/19
Winner of the 2022 SoA Paul Torday Memorial Prize

Book cover for 'Advent' by Jane Fraser, featuring a large feather with green and black sections, and text describing the theme of love, duty, or freedom.

Winter, 1904, and feisty twenty-one-year-old Ellen has been summoned back from her new life in Hoboken, New Jersey, to the family farm on windswept Gower, in a last bid to prevent the impending death of her alcoholic father.

On her return, she finds the family in disarray. Ailing William is gambling away large swathes of Thomas land; frustrated Eleanor is mourning the husband she once knew; and Ellen’s younger twin brothers face difficult choices. Ellen, tasked with putting her family’s lives in order, finds herself battling one impossible decision after another.

Resourceful, passionate, and forthright, can she remain in Gower, where being female still brings with it so many limitations? Can she endure being so close to her lost love? Will she choose home and duty, or excitement and opportunity across the Atlantic?

“Vivid and poetic, Jane Fraser’s Advent is a well-deserved winner. It is an outstanding tale, made all the more unforgettable and powerful by its remarkable hush and restraint.”

Donald S Murray, Society of Authors’ Paul Torday Memorial Prize judge

Reviews
You can read reviews of Advent here:
Nation Cymru
Northern Reader/Joules Barham
Goodreads
Books and Wine Gums/Emma Moyle
the_unhurried_reader
pippinsbooks

You can order a copy of Advent from:
Honno | Amazon | Waterstones

  • “In giving birth to Ellen, Jane Fraser has created a new kick-ass Welsh heroine, born on the green lands of Gower but whose sights are raised to the horizon far away.”

    Euros Lyn, BAFTA-winning TV and film director

  • “The historical research is deep but worn lightly in this novel: the period feels immediate, breathing with vocabulary of place and time, village life intimately drawn. It’s an atmospheric story sustained throughout with a simmering, elegant tension.”

    Ruth McKee, The Irish Times