Ash

Thea lives under a mountain - one that's ready to blow. A vet at a mid-sized rural practice, she has been called back during maternity leave and is coping - just - with the juggle of meetings, mealtimes, farm visits, her boss's search for legal loopholes and the constant care of her much-loved children, Eli and Lucy. But something is shifting in Thea - something is burning. Or is it that she is becoming aware, for the first time, of the bright, hot core at her centre? Then comes an urgent call. Ingeniously layered, Ash is a story about reckoning with one's rage and finding marvels in the midst of chaos.

Louise Wallace is the author of four collections of poems, the latest of which is This Is a Story About Your Mother (2023). She is the founder and editor of Starling, an online journal publishing the work of young writers from Aotearoa, and the editor of Orongohau Best New Zealand Poems 2022. She is a recipient of the Biggs Prize for Poetry and a Robert Burns fellow. She grew up in Gisborne and lives in Otepoti Dunedin. Ash is her first novel.