'Astonishingly brilliant. My book of the year.'
Liz Nugent, Sunday Times-bestselling author of Strange Sally Diamond
For fans of Emily St John Mandel and Kazuo Ishiguro, an exhilarating literary speculative novel about an isolated town neighboured by its own past and future, and a young girl who faces an impossible choice...
Sixteen-year-old Odile Ozanne is an awkward, quiet girl, but everyone knows she's destined to land a coveted seat on the Conseil. In her apprenticeship, she competes to become one of the judges to decide who amongst the town's residents may travel across the border. If she earns the position, she'll decree who may be escorted deep into the woods, who may cross the border's barbed wire fence, who may make the arduous trek over the western mountain range - or perhaps the eastern range-to descend into the next valley over. It's the same valley, the same town. However, to the east, the town is twenty years ahead in time. To the west, it's twenty years behind. The towns repeat in an endless sequence across the wilderness. The only border crossings permitted by the Conseil are mourning tours: furtive viewings of the dead in towns where the dead are still alive.
Odile, wise beyond her years, will surely pass the Conseil's vetting. But when she happens upon a mourning tour she wasn't supposed to see, she realizes her dear friend Edme's parents have crossed the border from the east, from twenty years in the future, to view their son still alive in Odile's present. Edme, who's so funny and light. Edme, who's a violin virtuoso at just sixteen. Edme, who's the first boy to even see Odile, to really like her.... And it's Edme who's going to die. Sworn to secrecy by the Conseil in order to preserve the timeline, Odile finds herself drawn even closer to the doomed boy. When Edme dies far sooner than Odile expects, when she does nothing to thwart his fate, she's deeply shaken. The loss, her foreknowledge, the weight of her rare and varied grief all throw Odile's own future, her adult life, into a devastating, downward spiral.
If your soul was stricken by the years, your teeth bloodied from all of life's blows, would you risk being seen by the armed patrols, would you gamble with everyone's lives, with your own, with the annihilation of an entire timeline to hike across the border and get back to where it all went wrong?
Genre: Science Fiction
Liz Nugent, Sunday Times-bestselling author of Strange Sally Diamond
For fans of Emily St John Mandel and Kazuo Ishiguro, an exhilarating literary speculative novel about an isolated town neighboured by its own past and future, and a young girl who faces an impossible choice...
Sixteen-year-old Odile Ozanne is an awkward, quiet girl, but everyone knows she's destined to land a coveted seat on the Conseil. In her apprenticeship, she competes to become one of the judges to decide who amongst the town's residents may travel across the border. If she earns the position, she'll decree who may be escorted deep into the woods, who may cross the border's barbed wire fence, who may make the arduous trek over the western mountain range - or perhaps the eastern range-to descend into the next valley over. It's the same valley, the same town. However, to the east, the town is twenty years ahead in time. To the west, it's twenty years behind. The towns repeat in an endless sequence across the wilderness. The only border crossings permitted by the Conseil are mourning tours: furtive viewings of the dead in towns where the dead are still alive.
Odile, wise beyond her years, will surely pass the Conseil's vetting. But when she happens upon a mourning tour she wasn't supposed to see, she realizes her dear friend Edme's parents have crossed the border from the east, from twenty years in the future, to view their son still alive in Odile's present. Edme, who's so funny and light. Edme, who's a violin virtuoso at just sixteen. Edme, who's the first boy to even see Odile, to really like her.... And it's Edme who's going to die. Sworn to secrecy by the Conseil in order to preserve the timeline, Odile finds herself drawn even closer to the doomed boy. When Edme dies far sooner than Odile expects, when she does nothing to thwart his fate, she's deeply shaken. The loss, her foreknowledge, the weight of her rare and varied grief all throw Odile's own future, her adult life, into a devastating, downward spiral.
If your soul was stricken by the years, your teeth bloodied from all of life's blows, would you risk being seen by the armed patrols, would you gamble with everyone's lives, with your own, with the annihilation of an entire timeline to hike across the border and get back to where it all went wrong?
Genre: Science Fiction
Praise for this book
"A breathtaking meditation on grief and the fluidity of time, told in elegant, precise prose, and which speeds to an audacious ending." - Kerry Andrew
"The Other Valley is a complex and elegiac exploration of humanity and our relationship with time. Told through tender and thoughtful prose, Scott Alexander Howard's novel leaves you wondering about the choices you've made in your life, and whether you'd do them differently if you had the chance. It is a tale of loss, of hope, and of possibility. It is a book that will stay with you, if not for its questions about fate and consequence, then for its quiet and moving depiction of love and grief. I loved it." - Nicholas Binge
"In The Other Valley, Scott Alexander Howard takes an ingenious conceit and wraps it in a story of teenage love to explore eternal questions about second chances and predestination. Howard's novel is sensitively written, propulsively plotted, and unforgettable." - Kevin Chong
"A stellar debut, full of heartbreak and hope wrapped up in gorgeous prose. Scott Alexander Howard is one to watch." - Christina Dalcher
"A bittersweet tale of first love and coming-of-age, as well as a unique take on the intersection of fate and free will." - Nikki Erlick
"Thoughtful, touching and beautiful, The Other Valley is an accomplished and exquisitely crafted novel. Scott Alexander Howard takes readers into a unique world they are sure to remember, and introduces them to Odile, a fascinating character with an unenviable dilemma." - Adam Hamdy
"The Other Valley comprises three novels, all of them equally enthralling. It is a satisfyingly detailed philosophical thought experiment; a moving, intensely poignant love story, and a masterful, slow-burning suspense novel. It lingers in the mind in the best way, and sits comfortably beside Ishiguro, Ted Chiang and Murakami on an ideal bookshelf." - Jo Harkin
"Part Ishiguro, part Amis, and somehow all its own, The Other Valley marks the debut of a phenomenally talented writer. Pay attention." - Sarah Langan
"The Other Valley is as riveting as it is philosophically beautiful. Scott Alexander Howard asks us to imagine how we might live if our older and younger selves weren't lost to us, but waited for us somewhere. While the premise is uniquely speculative, the sensation of being stranded between the ambitious optimism of youth and the clouded uncertainty of the future is gorgeously familiar. Powerful and atmospheric, Howard's novel is one I hope to reread at different stages of my life." - Sara Flannery Murphy
"What a stunning debut! This coming-of-age story is filled to the brim with heart and hope and Howard's prose is simply breathtaking. The Other Valley is a brilliant take on time travel and a thought-provoking exploration of the boundaries between fate and choice. Make room on your shelves, folks, this book is going to knock your socks off." - Sylvain Neuvel
"Astonishingly brilliant. My book of the year." - Liz Nugent
"eeply moving, gorgeously rendered, Scott Alexander Howard's The Other Valley is a powerful meditation on memory, and grief, and the possibility of real connection, even across time itself. Wonderful." - Steven Price
"The Other Valley is a complex and elegiac exploration of humanity and our relationship with time. Told through tender and thoughtful prose, Scott Alexander Howard's novel leaves you wondering about the choices you've made in your life, and whether you'd do them differently if you had the chance. It is a tale of loss, of hope, and of possibility. It is a book that will stay with you, if not for its questions about fate and consequence, then for its quiet and moving depiction of love and grief. I loved it." - Nicholas Binge
"In The Other Valley, Scott Alexander Howard takes an ingenious conceit and wraps it in a story of teenage love to explore eternal questions about second chances and predestination. Howard's novel is sensitively written, propulsively plotted, and unforgettable." - Kevin Chong
"A stellar debut, full of heartbreak and hope wrapped up in gorgeous prose. Scott Alexander Howard is one to watch." - Christina Dalcher
"A bittersweet tale of first love and coming-of-age, as well as a unique take on the intersection of fate and free will." - Nikki Erlick
"Thoughtful, touching and beautiful, The Other Valley is an accomplished and exquisitely crafted novel. Scott Alexander Howard takes readers into a unique world they are sure to remember, and introduces them to Odile, a fascinating character with an unenviable dilemma." - Adam Hamdy
"The Other Valley comprises three novels, all of them equally enthralling. It is a satisfyingly detailed philosophical thought experiment; a moving, intensely poignant love story, and a masterful, slow-burning suspense novel. It lingers in the mind in the best way, and sits comfortably beside Ishiguro, Ted Chiang and Murakami on an ideal bookshelf." - Jo Harkin
"Part Ishiguro, part Amis, and somehow all its own, The Other Valley marks the debut of a phenomenally talented writer. Pay attention." - Sarah Langan
"The Other Valley is as riveting as it is philosophically beautiful. Scott Alexander Howard asks us to imagine how we might live if our older and younger selves weren't lost to us, but waited for us somewhere. While the premise is uniquely speculative, the sensation of being stranded between the ambitious optimism of youth and the clouded uncertainty of the future is gorgeously familiar. Powerful and atmospheric, Howard's novel is one I hope to reread at different stages of my life." - Sara Flannery Murphy
"What a stunning debut! This coming-of-age story is filled to the brim with heart and hope and Howard's prose is simply breathtaking. The Other Valley is a brilliant take on time travel and a thought-provoking exploration of the boundaries between fate and choice. Make room on your shelves, folks, this book is going to knock your socks off." - Sylvain Neuvel
"Astonishingly brilliant. My book of the year." - Liz Nugent
"eeply moving, gorgeously rendered, Scott Alexander Howard's The Other Valley is a powerful meditation on memory, and grief, and the possibility of real connection, even across time itself. Wonderful." - Steven Price
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