The Ashland Trilogy Series

Letters in the mail from his long-dead brother send Leo Nolan on a time-bending journey in this “deceptive novel . . . filled with extraordinary events” (The New York Times). Things have to be settled, or they never go away. Only weeks before she dies in March, 1984, Leo Nolan’s mother shows her son a rose she says was just given to her by her brother, Jack, who disappeared 50 years earlier. After her death, letters from Jack begin to arrive at the family home. They are postmarked 1934. The final one is from Ashland, Kentucky. Leo heads to Ashland, to track down the source of the letters…. And to find out why they are arriving now, after 50 years. Time shifts. Time runs underground, then surfaces. It is 1934, and Leo experiences the Great Depression and the ghosts of the past as no one has in 50 years, in Ashland, where dreams die and are born again. “A love story, time travel epic, ghost story, labor history, road novel and a bank heist, all with the added touch of Steinbeckian metaphysics. For me it was the surprise of the year, a rich evocation of 1934 small-town Kentucky that winds up completely unpredictable.” –The Edmonton Journal, “Top Fiction Pick of the Year” “Green has devised a truly mysterious mystery, he writes with a real and rare sympathy for his characters.” –The Atlanta Constitution “A jewel of a novel” –Booklist WORLD FANTASY AWARD FINALIST 

This family saga that travels through time—from modern Toronto to Depression-era Kentucky—and explores how the ghosts of the past shape our history. Every family has its stories: joys and losses, hopes and regrets. For the family that populates these three novels, the secrets forgotten with the passing of years become suddenly accessible, as journeys through time unite loved ones across the decades.   Shadow of Ashland: Leo Nolan’s mother shows him a rose just before she dies—and claims it was given to her by her brother, who disappeared fifty years earlier. Leo is sure it’s the delirium talking, the rambling of a sick and elderly woman. But after her death, letters from the same long-lost brother begin to arrive at the family home, postmarked 1934—plunging Leo into a journey that will take him all the way from Canada to Ashland, Kentucky, where he will walk through a window that leads to another time and world.   A Witness to Life: This prequel focusing on Leo’s maternal grandfather, Martin Radey, and the chronology of his life “is an emotionally charged experience that will not be soon forgotten” (Dallas Morning News).   St. Patrick’s Bed: In the final chapter to the Ashland Trilogy, a son of the next generation asks questions about his biological father and sets off along with Leo on a quest for his heritage and history.   A highly acclaimed epic from “a special writer,” The Ashland Trilogy blends the fantastical and the real in a tale that will resonate with anyone who has yearned to know more about the generations who came before (The Globe and Mail).

“A beautiful novel” of life and death, past and present, and the thin lines that lie between them (The Toronto Star). On a streetcar, on Christmas Day, 1950, clutching the chrome rail in front of him, Martin Radey looks at the woman seated beside him, a stranger, and utters his last words: “I can’t breathe.” Like millions, billions before him, it is his turn to die. But death is not what he expected. The journey has only begun. From 1880 to 1950, time happens to the world around him, not to memory, because memory, he discovers, is beyond time, traveling forward with him, shaping the earth, the sky, the heart. The prequel to the widely celebrated Shadow of Ashland, A Witness to Life “is an emotionally charged experience that will not soon be forgotten.” (Dallas Morning News)

“A modern ghost story.” —The Globe and Mail There’s a line drawn across your life. When you become a parent, you cross the line forever. When Leo Nolan’s father dies in 1995, his stepson, Adam, now twenty-one, finally asks the question that he has never asked, the question he could never ask. He asks it simply. “Is my father alive?” St. Patrick's Bed, the sequel to the highly acclaimed, World Fantasy Award finalists Shadow of Ashland and A Witness to Life, revisits Leo’s family, eleven years after the momentous visit to Ashland, Kentucky. Thus begins this new odyssey to Dayton, Ohio, to the past, accompanied by family ghosts and the hard truths of the present. Leo’s quest is both simple and complex: the need in the human heart for redemption, resolution and homecoming. “If Turgenev hadn’t already nabbed it, St. Patrick's Bed could have been entitled Fathers and Sons, with Leo Nolan straddling both roles. The novel morphs into a road book, taking him from Toronto to Dayton, Ohio, and Ireland. Compact, quietly thoughtful, emotionally compelling. . . . Green’s skill as a fantasist shines. A special writer.” —The Globe and Mail "The book is genuine." —Dayton Daily News "The ending of this book was like a large blast of fireworks." —The Danforth Review "Green’s novels tell big stories in his characters’ lives, and they become important to us as readers. Deeply satisfying . . . will appeal to a wide readership, one I hope he achieves, one he deserves to achieve." —Books To Look For (Charles de Lint, Fantasy & Science Fiction) "St. Patrick's Bed is a gem." —SFSite