Dimensions
129 x 198 x 15mm
To a land of imagination comes a long-awaited stranger . . .
In an outlying village in a far-away valley - a place where dreams bleed into reality - a young woman is assaulted and falls pregnant. The beloved pastor's stiffened corpse is found on the forest path, and winter keeps its grip on the land until June. Despondency and unease take root.
When rumours being to spread of the approach of a mysterious figure, a stranger astride a magnificent brown stallion, the conviction grows that he alone can mend the village's broken spirit, and lead it through its hour of need.
Riding into the valley as if in acceptance of this role, Nathaniel Cadwallader ushers in a golden age of faith and tranquility, exerting a benign, if distant, influence from the chapel where he settles and devotes himself to his carpentry. Yet there are those who resent his aloofness, suspicious of the ease with which he holds the village in the palm of his hand.
When a beautiful outsider attempts to claim the carpenter as her own, the spell is broken, and Nathaniel quickly becomes a scapegoat for his detractor's own guilt and fears.
Charlotte Fairbairn has created a magical story of belief, superstition and innocence lost which compels the imagination long after the final page is turned. It is the work of a spellbinding and highly original talent.
