Unrest

De: Gwen Tuinman

Narrado por: Nicole Bauman, Jeff Madden, Sarah English, Douglas Walker

Brash, duplicitous women, murder and mayhem, and illicit love abound in this wild adventure for fans of Outlander and The Home for Unwanted Girls, announcing a major new talent in historical fiction.

Bytown, 1836: The lawless cesspool that will become the city of Ottawa is beginning to reek of more than just swamp water. Rife with squalor, corruption, and organized crime, class injustice divides the town more starkly than the canal that bisects it, cutting off its Irish poor—who are ready to fight back.

On a homestead in the woods near Bytown, a domestic drama is also reaching a fever pitch. Quiet, ungainly Mariah, her face scarred in a dog attack back home in Ireland, has been living on sufferance in her sister Biddy’s home since they sailed for a new life. She’s treated as the spinster aunt, a farmhand working alongside Biddy’s husband, Seamus. But the three of them are keeping a bitter secret: Mariah, in love with Seamus, is the mother of Thomas, the family’s oldest child. And she’s about to burst under the strain of making herself small.

While Mariah plots to claim her rightful place in the world, Thomas keeps secrets of his own. Eager to escape the roiling tensions at home, he’s apprenticed himself to a blacksmith in Bytown, but soon falls into trouble too big for him to handle. To save himself, he’s made a deal with the one man colder than the devil—Peter Aylen, leader of a powerful Irish rebel gang. As danger mounts, both for Thomas and for the town, there’s only one way for Mariah to save her son: by becoming the hero of her own story, facing her deepest fears with a determination she never knew she had.

©2024 Gwen Tuinman (P)2024 Random House Canada

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Dark secrets seeded in Ireland burst into full and furious bloom in Gwen Tuinman’s Unrest. With sharply-seen details of 1830s Ottawa, Unrest parallels personal and political peril in the gritty world of Bytown’s Irish poor. Tender, brutal, heartbreaking and true, this is historical fiction at its best.” —Beth Powning, author of The Sister's Tale

“In her stunningly beautiful story Unrest, Gwen Tuinman’s memorable antiheroes—the transcendent and mesmerizing Mariah, and the dazzlingly rebellious young Thomas—navigate the wilds alongside a gang of unforgettably diverse eccentrics in the lawless Ottawa Valley of 1836. The writing is a triumph—unflinchingly powerful and at the same time a meditation on motherhood, love, and what we must do to become our true selves. Tuinman’s prose is as remarkable and exquisite as its setting, saturated with period detail and heart. I couldn’t put it down.” —Maia Caron, author of Song of Batoche

“Set in frontier Ottawa and the frozen wilderness of Upper Canada, Unrest offers a unique, vibrant account of the Irish poor as they navigate a society awash in hardship, corruption, and prejudice. Tough-as-nails Mariah and her rash, willful son Thomas come to vivid, aching life as they rise up against the oppressive forces that restrain them. A skillfully researched, compelling tale of resilience, love and the relentless pursuit of one’s dreams.” —Cathy Marie Buchanan, author of The Painted Girls