The bad Amazon reviews seemed primarily related to the hints of incest as the children grew older. From bestselling, award-winning author Michael Crummey comes a sweeping, heart-wrenching, deeply immersive novel about a brother and sister alone in a small. I couldn't wait to find out what happened to these kids. Even though this was not a 'thriller', it was a page-turner for me. This was a well-written story of self-sufficiency and surviving in the elements in the wilderness in the not so distant past. Life is rough and hard, but they seem to be making it work, if barely. Later they begin to do a bit of fur trapping as well. On the remote coast of Newfoundland in the 19th century, the Best family ekes out a meager existence.

We follow them over several years as they fish, salt the fish and sell them to a supply ship that appears twice a year, their only human contact with the outside world. By turns electrifying and heartbreaking, it is. Then, their infant sister and their mother die, and soon after their father dies, leaving them, about ages 12 and 10, to survive on their own. A riveting story of hardship and survival, and an unflinching exploration of the bond between brother and sister. Set against the unforgiving Newfoundland frontier, this harrowing tale of two siblings. The family scrapes out a living fishing and subsistence farming. Michael Crummeys The Innocents is a dazzling and myriad achievement. By turns electrifying and heartbreaking, it is a testament to the bounty and barbarity of the world, to the wonders and strangeness of our individual selves.

Evered and Ada live with their parents on an bleak and isolated Newfoundland cove. The Innocents is richly imagined and compulsively readable, a riveting story of hardship and survival, and an unflinching exploration of the bond between brother and sister.

Michael crummey the innocents review