I liked the look of concentration on his face when we made love. His hands moved gently over my body; it was as if he was turning the pages of some fragile book – the type of book that has tissue pages, like an old-fashioned Bible. He reminded me, too, of a child learning to read. I pictured his fingertips tracing the words on the page, his lips mouthing the sounds, so intense was his focus. ‘Edwin,’ I teased, ‘am I a good book?’

One of the reasons she was attracted to etchings was the deep, rich, black of the oily ink. A good layer of black ink was fathomless, like the sky or the sea at night. It was black as the unconscious mind, full of life but beyond reach.

Quinn is a successful artist creating new works for an upcoming exhibition. She lives on the coast with Marcus, a vet who left his wife for her and lost contact with his young daughter Audrey as a result. Entering their lives is Callum, a deep-sea diver with a love of the ocean. As the countdown to Quinn’s exhibition progresses, each must face challenges and make choices that will test their loyalties and have far-reaching consequences for their future.

Reach is about risk-taking and the ways in which creativity, struggle and danger empower individuals and enrich life.

Funny and moving, this novel subverts notions of ‘man vs. wild’ while showcasing female experience through encounters with family, friends and the natural world.

Loretta is a school librarian, who embarks on compiling The Dangerous Book for Menopausal Women while waiting to collect her son from after-school activities. Chance is a teenager, who discovers an unusual creative outlet to offset the strain of her controlling mother. Riva is the founder of a wetlands sanctuary, who is seeking a way to fulfil her promise to her dying sister to do something ‘absolutely spectacular’.

Within a clearing in the woods by a lake stands a den, a secret sanctuary and eventual meeting place for all three women …

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Laurence Fearnley is an award-winning novelist. Her novel The Hut Builder won the fiction category of the 2011 NZ Post Book Awards and was shortlisted for the international 2010 Boardman Tasker Prize for mountain writing. Her 2014 novel, Reach, was longlisted for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, Edwin and Matilda was runner-up in the 2008 Montana New Zealand Book Awards and her second novel, Room, was shortlisted for the 2001 Montana New Zealand Book Awards. In 2017 she was the joint winner of the Landfall essay competition and in 2016 she won the NZSA/Janet Frame Memorial Award. In 2004 Fearnley was awarded the Artists to Antarctica Fellowship and in 2007 the Robert Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago. Laurence lives in Dunedin with her husband and son.

THE BEGINNING

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