Ash Mountain

By Helen Fitzgerald

Single-mother Fran returns to her sleepy hometown to care for her dying father when a devastating bush fire breaks out. A heartbreaking, nail-biting disaster-noir thriller from the bestselling author of The Cry and Worst Case Scenario.

‘Urgent, angry, absolutely terrifying, yet suffused with the humanity and humour you expect from a Helen Fitzgerald novel’ Erin Kelly, author of Watch Her Fall

‘Tantalisingly powerful’ The Times

‘Ash Mountain is the author at her masterly best … I loved it!’ Louise Candlish, author of The Heights

________________

Fran hates her hometown, and she thought she’d escaped. But her father is ill, and needs care. Her relationship is over, and she hates her dead-end job in the city, anyway.

She returns home to nurse her dying father, her distant teenage daughter in tow for the weekends. There, in the sleepy town of Ash Mountain, childhood memories prick at her fragile self-esteem, she falls in love for the first time, and her demanding dad tests her patience, all in the unbearable heat of an Australian summer. As past friendships and rivalries are renewed, and new ones forged, Fran’s tumultuous home life is the least of her worries, when old crimes rear their heads and a devastating bushfire ravages the town and all of its inhabitants…

Simultaneously a warm, darkly funny portrait of small-town life – and a woman and a land in crisis – and a shocking and truly distressing account of a catastrophic event that changes things forever, Ash Mountain is a heart-breaking slice of domestic noir, and a disturbing disaster thriller that you will never forget…

________________

‘A new novel from Helen Fitzgerald is always a major event, and Ash Mountain is magnificent’ Mark Billingham, author of Rabbit Hole

‘There is plenty of human depravity in the plot but none of that is as terrifyingly overmastering as the fire’ Literary Review

‘Domestic life is rarely served up quite so dark as this – but that only makes you hungry for more’ The Sun

‘Dark, atmospheric and terrifying’ Ambrose Parry, author of A Corruption of Blood

‘Compelling’ Independent

Praise for Helen FitzGerald

***Worst Case Scenario was Shortlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2020***

‘The plotting is intricate and beautifully handled, and the narrative pace is absolutely breakneck … a wonderful, energetic, hard-hitting and deeply funny novel’ The Big Issue

‘The main character is one of the most extraordinary you’ll meet between the pages of a book’ Ian Rankin, author of A Song for the Dark times

‘A dark, comic masterpiece which manages to be both excruciatingly tense and laugh out loud funny at the same time’ Mark Edwards, author of The House Guest

‘The classic thriller gets a hell of a twist’ Heat

‘FitzGerald writes like a more focused Irvine Welsh or a less misogynist Philip Roth’ Daily Telegraph

‘Domestic life is rarely served up quite so dark as this – but that only makes you hungry for more’ The Sun

• Language: English
• Publisher: ORENDA BOOKS
• Release date: Mar 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781913193294

Helen Fitzgerald

Helen Fitzgerald is an author and lecturer certified in thanatology by the Association for Death Education and Counseling. For twenty-three years she was the coordinator of the Grief Program for Mental Health Services in Fairfax County, Virginia, where she conducted many groups for adults, as well as for grieving children ranging from preschool age through the high school years. In July 2000 she retired from that position and then served as the director of training for the American Hospice Foundation. Her books include The Grieving Child, The Mourning Handbook, and The Grieving Teen.

Reviews for Ash Mountain

[steven1958 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The story of a fictitious town in Victoria that is told in the disasters that it suffers over a 30 year period. These disasters are both man-made and natural. The story climaxes with a bushfire that all but destroys the town. But it covers about 6 time periods, from the day of the fire, a few days before the fire, a couple of weeks before and 30 years before the fire, I found it hard at times to keep all the storylines straight. It wasn't a bad read and reminded me of the recent 2019-2020 fires and the Ash Wednesday fires many years ago now. I will probably try another of her books later.