Explosive, dark and tender, The Last Boat Home is a devastating novel about sacrifice, survival and a mother's love. If you loved The Light Between Oceans or The Snow Child, this is for you. On the wind-swept southern coast of Norway, sixteen-year-old Else is out on the icy sea, dragging her oars through the waves while, above her, storm clouds are gathering. Surrounded by mountains, snow and white-capped water, she looks across the fjord and dreams of another life, of escape and faraway lands. Back on shore, her father sits alone in his boathouse with a jar of homebrew. In the Best Room, her mother covers her bruises and seeks solace in prayer. Each tries to hide the truth from this isolated, God-fearing community they call home. Until one night changes everything. More than thirty years later, the return of an old friend forces Else to relive the events that marked the end of her childhood. Explosive, dark and tender, The Last Boat Home is a devastating novel about sacrifice, survival and a mother's love.
A finely-written debut, as eloquent about mothers and daughters as it is about men and women, with an immediacy to the writing that makes both time - then and now - and place - a small Norwegian town - fully realised and tangibly present. -- Stella Duffy
The evocation of place is wonderful; the writing fresh, the storytelling assured. Dea Brovig vividly conjures up this Norwegian community and its terrible secrets and repressions. -- Jill Dawson author of The Great Lover and Lucky Bunny
Author
About Dea Brovig
Dea Brovig moved to the UK from Norway at the age of 17. After graduating from Leeds University, she worked in publishing in London for eight years. She graduated from UEA's Creative Writing MA in 2009. The Last Boat Home is her first novel.
