Ash Falls
Ig Publishing, January 2017
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Ash Falls
Ig Publishing, January 2017
- 2018 Independent Publisher Book Award (GOLD)
- 2017 Foreword Indies Award (SILVER)
- 2017 National Indie Excellence Award
Set in a moss-draped, small Pacific Northwest mountain town, ASH FALLS is a story of psychological and social claustrophobia, and of people connected by one man’s single act of horrific violence. A woman is desperate to understand a son she can’t reach, and the former lover who won’t let her go. A gay, teenaged boy aches for a father who seems to have vanished into thin air, and dreams of a day when he might be able to do the same. A young girl navigates a marriage framed in violence and fear, and a life that is nothing like the one she once dreamed of. While the residents of ASH FALLS wait on edge for the reappearance of a killer, they discover that they are held prisoner not by Ernie Luntz, but by the chains of their own creation.
A routine prison-transfer ends on a rural highway a hundred miles east of Walla Walla, Washington, upside-down in a ravine with the driver dead of a heart attack. Convicted murderer Ernie Luntz walks away from the accident unhurt, his eyes fixed on the mountain range, and the unfinished business that lies on the other side.
Praise
"(Read) meticulously weaves the gritty, hard-knock lives of many men and women from this impoverished, rural town in mountainous Washington into "tight little complicated knots."...A moody, haunting foray into rural Americana in the mold of Daniel Woodrell and Christian Kiefer." —Kirkus Reviews
"In this fine first novel, Read deftly portrays the competing feelings of suffocation and loneliness that can breed in small towns. Pair this with Daniel Woodrell's marvelous Tomato Red." —Booklist
"Though set in a bleak place at a bleak time, Read's novel ultimately is one of hope. As it winds to its conclusion, each character finds a key to closing the self-created distance between who they are and who they'd like to be, culminating in an extraordinary Christmas Eve act of love. Most readers will enjoy." —Library Journal
"A well-crafted, subtle psychological thriller." —Publisher's Weekly
"A stunning display of grit made alluring. Both beautiful and stark, Ash Falls is a slice-of-life portrait that gives color to the grayest of times." —Shelf Awareness
"Ash Falls is a dynamite debut: keenly observed, well-paced, and dripping with atmosphere. Read’s gritty, hard-knock characters walk off the page." —Jonathan Evison, best-selling author of The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving and West of Here
"Bringing to life an astonishing range of characters who are intricately connected with each other, Warren Read’s Ash Falls vividly depicts an out-of-the-way place and a peculiarly American way of life. These pages are memorable and intensely compelling." —David Huddle, author of The Faulkes Chronicle and My Immaculate Assassin