A middle-grade novel presents a fable about a raccoon who tries to guide his animal brethren home after disaster strikes.

When Gavin awakens on a fallen tree trunk, the raccoon is certain the catastrophic flood that hit Earthwood was only a nightmare. But it really happened, and that trunk has likely been floating aimlessly for some time. Luckily, he soon finds his brothers, Trisbert and Cuyler, as well as other “woods-creatures,” including rabbits, mice, and a snake. When they finally get an inkling as to where they are, they realize getting back to Earthwood will be an arduous trek—through the predator-filled Forest of Everdark. Gavin, the oldest grandson of Earthwood’s “clan coon” head, becomes the flood survivors’ leader. They’re in danger of terrifying foes, from wolves and coyotes to “universally evil” Tallwalkers who wield lethal “firesticks.” Courage is a must, but they’ll need brains as well to safely cross bodies of water and outwit predators that would otherwise devour them. All the while, they can only hope their missing friends and families are waiting for them. Gutteridge’s gripping novel is often dark; threats against the woods-creatures are constant, and not everyone makes it to the end. It’s nevertheless exciting as Gavin and the rest overcome obstacles in their path and enemies (like a fox) form alliances. What little humor there is comes courtesy of the woods-creatures’ interpretations of humans, who speak “Gibberlish” and drive “doomsmobiles.” These animals constitute a huge, appealing cast, including Gavin, a great commander in the making, and the porcupine Quiver, who either uses words incorrectly (a noble sediment) or simply makes them up (temcrestuous). Along with charming nods to Scripture and literature, from the biblical story of Noah and the flood to the Knights of the Round Table, this journey delivers a handful of surprises, particularly an effective final act twist.

A riveting morality tale with a marvelous forest-dwelling cast.

A sprawling historical novel about one woman's life on the Canadian frontier.

Gutteridge’s novel centers on Lily Corcoran, whom readers meet as a young girl in 1845 in Ontario’sMoore Township. There, White settlers are still in the process of felling trees and displacing First Nations inhabitants in order to build farms, homesteads, and towns. As a young girl, Lily hears from an old First Nations elder that the world is rapidly changing: “Two days walk south of here and they say you’ll come to roads chopped through the bush, and White Mens drives his wagons on roads made of dead trees, and Chatham is bigger than ten Ojibwa villages.” Readers with some knowledge of 19th-century history will know some of the events that await young Lily,whose father calls her “Lady Fairchild,” and Gutteridge’s narrative proceeds at a steady pace to unfold that history. It follows Lily through many adventures, including her sometimes-fractious relationships with men (including three husbands), a world war, and countless smaller changes as her life moves through the early part of the 20th century. Even in Lily’s early childhood, she deals with her mother’s melancholia, the violence of slave hunters, and the dawning of her own young womanhood. She later lives with her fiercely independent Aunt Bridie, and over the course of hundreds of pages, readers meet her beloved husband Tom Marshall and her two boys, Robbie and Brad, and they experience touching interludes with her semiofficial foster son, Eddie. Her later years are buffeted by tragedies, but she retains the bright spirit of the young girl in the very first chapter.

Long-haul, multigenerational historical fiction such as this is often a victim of skewed perspective, as authors, deeply ensconced in often years of research, often overestimate how much detail their readers will want to endure. Gutteridge’s narrative is prodigiously researched (and includes a bibliography), but he never overloads his audience; instead, he seamlessly works the historical grounding into what is, first and foremost, an intensely personal story. The book’s large and varied cast is uniformly well drawn, but Lily towers over the rest; from her earliest scenes, she’s by far the most compelling figure in the narrative. Gutteridge believably and effectively captures her youthful exuberance, as well as her resilience, even in the face of a heartbreaking tragedy in the book’s final pages. He combines his character study with beautifully evocative prose; at one point, for instance, after sunset, “Lily was sure she could hear the River tuning up for its nightsong”; at another, a character’s skin is described as having “the pallor and touch of gray-white mushrooms too long in the rain.” Overall, the author does an excellent job of giving his narrative the feel of a life as it is lived. Readers of such books as Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove (1985) or Anna Waldo’s Sacajawea (1978) will see a similar kind of storytelling here; it’s a difficult feat to manage, but Gutteridge does so.

This sweeping historical novel follows the titular pioneer from her adolescence to old age, cataloguing the early history of Canada in the context of her life.

Born in rural Canada in the mid-nineteenth century, Lily is introduced as a rough-hewn, taciturn, and uncompromising woman: uneducated and short on opportunity, but blessed with plenty of backbone. Orphaned following the death of her mother and abandonment by her father, she is taken in by her caring Aunt Bridie and Uncle Chester, who give her their last name, teach her farming, and instruct her in how to sell their wares at the weekend market. While not always a direct actor in them, Lily is often used to bear witness to the events of her time: the influx of escaped slaves from the Underground Railroad, a visit from the Prince of Wales, the unrelenting construction of railways in Canada, and so on. The young Prince Edward’s 1860 visit is one of the richer diversions in the novel: after meeting Lily, he swiftly fathers a daughter, who Lily is forced to give up to a wealthy Toronto family to be raised. Events such as this one characterize Lily’s life: beholden to a male-dominated society, and grimly accepting of her fate, all of it told in Gutteridge’s (The Rebellion Mysteries: Turncoat, Solemn Vows, Vital Secrets 2012, etc.) patient, lilting prose. One of the more affecting passages relays her courtship with the soldier Tom Marshall, a Londoner who eventually becomes Lily’s husband and the father to her children. A central narrative is eschewed in favor of an impressionistic portrayal of Lily’s life, however, with diversions not just accepted but the central feature of Gutteridge’s storytelling. What’s clear is that, while his sentence construction is at times lovely, he is in dire need of an editor: seemingly unable to separate an interesting historical fact from one that might be of service to his narrative, the novel comes across as shapeless and meandering. Much like a life, to be sure, but prioritizing historical meticulousness over a gripping narrative renders the book frustratingly unfocused.

An overlong epic where the historical detail obscures the human narrative at its heart.