Now a major motion picture starring Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and Rhys Ifans
George and Serena Pemberton arrive in the wilds of the North Carolina mountains to build a life together in a rural logging town. But Serena Pemberton is unlike any woman this town has ever seen: overseeing crews, hunting rattlesnakes and even saving her husband in the wilderness. So when Serena learns that she will never bear a child, she is determined that her intensely passionate marriage will not unravel. A course of events unfolds that will change the lives of everyone in their rural community and bring this riveting tale of love and revenge to its shocking reckoning.
"A bloody - and bloody brilliant - story of passion and revenge. Terrific" - * The Times *
"Bitter and brilliant . . . it could sit comfortably on any bookshelf beside Cormac McCarthy or Charles Frazier . . . the plot moves with precision, beautifully wrought. The author's acute sense of place is evident on every page" - * Guardian *
"A stunningly effective novel that is stark, fierce, dramatic and gripping from its unforgettable opening paragraph" - * New York Times, Top Ten Books of 2008 *
"It's too hypnotic to break away from. Innocent people are in peril, and calamity seems as unstoppable . . . The final chapter is as flawless and captivating as anything I've read this year" - * Washington Post *
"Rash's evocative rendering of the blighted landscape and the tough characters who inhabit it recalls both John Steinbeck and Cormac McCarthy, while the malignant character of Serena, who projects a "stark unflinching certainty" about her actions, propels his finely paced story" - * New Yorker *
"If Serena becomes famous as the basis for a coming Jennifer Lawrence-Bradley Cooper movie, never forget that it began as a fierce, breathtaking book, one of the greatest American novels in recent memory" - * New York Times *
"In an age when literary fiction is so intent on subtlety that it often winds up virtually inert, a novel with this much uncomplicated gusto and narrative drive is a rare thing; in the case of Serena, it's also a welcome one" - * Salon *