February 19, 2018
An aura of mystery, faintly tinged with menace, permeates Canadian author Lye’s sensuous debut novel set in a remote, drought-imperiled part of Ontario. Farm owner Cynthia has attracted some desperately needed extra hands by advertising free artists’ residencies in exchange for farm work. A couple of the young arrivals quickly determine that the exhausting daily round of gardening, beekeeping, and other chores leaves scant time for creative pursuits (or anything else) and split. But Ibrahim, a painter from Toronto, and Halifax native Silvia, nominally an aspiring poet but mostly a directionless recent college grad chafing at her rigidly Christian parents’ expectations, embrace the opportunity and, eventually, each other. Casting a shadow over everything, however, is queen bee Cynthia, who may have a hidden agenda hinted at by references to her vanished former partner, Hilary—apparently a dead ringer for Silvia. Though the plot falters somewhat toward the finish, Lye offers an achingly lyrical excursion into a lost Eden. Agent: Stephanie Sinclair, Transatlantic Literary Agency (Canada).