West

Carys Davies

Strange as it may seem, I took comfort from this wilderness story which though small in stature, is big on impact. Despite knowing Cyrus Bellman is on a 'fool's errand', I wanted to believe in him and his enterprise. It’s a story full of wonder too - from the vast and changing landscape to an unlikely hero I didn't spot. Twisting and turning, it gathers pace as it heads towards a heart-stopping conclusion. Not a book I will instantly forget.

Extract

When he closed his eyes, they moved behind the lids in the darkness, slowly, silently, as if through water - they walked and they drifted, pictures continually blooming in his imagination and then vanishing into the blackness beyond it, where he could not grasp them, the only thing left in his head the thought of them being alive and perambulating out there in the unknown, out there in the west beyond the United States in some kind of wilderness of rivers and trees and plains and mountains and there to behold with your own two eyes if you could just get yourself out there and find them.

Parallels