FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE BALLROOM AND EXPECTATION

They are separating, she and her husband, after two decades together.
This fact is new.
There are many ways of telling the tale ...
There are many different sides to every story ...

A minibus journeys through rural Mexico. Inside it are twelve strangers on a pilgrimage to the White Rock, which stands, ancient and sacred, off the Pacific coast. Like many before them, over centuries and from across continents, they find themselves irresistibly drawn here, for answers, to give thanks, to seek protection.

One of them is a writer. She is travelling with her husband and young daughter, as her faith in her marriage, and the future itself, is foundering. She has come to the White Rock in the hope of excavating a beginning from the rubble of many different endings.

Here she will find the echoes of many stories: of conquest and resistance, of betrayal and belief, of the many different forms of violence and love. Stories that have already unravelled, and stories that might yet illuminate a passage through these uncertain times ...

'An eco-novel you actually want to read' The Times

'Its narrative sweep is capacious . . . It has ambition to match, musing on freedom and reciprocity [and] the redemptive power of storytelling. Impressive' Observer

'Deeply moving' The i