Days of Innocence and Wonder

Joint winner of the 2024 Barbara Jefferis Award

For all her life, Till, now twenty-three, has lived in the shadow of the abduction of a childhood friend, and her tormented half-wondering about whether she might have been able to stop it.

Finally, at the age of twenty-three, Till flees her past and the hovering presence of her fearful parents. In Wirowie, a town that's on its knees, she stops and slowly begins creating a new home, rebuilding an abandoned railway station.

But there is danger here too, and Till must ultimately decide whether she can turn from her fear-filled past and face down, even pursue, the darkness that suddenly looms so near - or whether she'll flee once more and never stop running.

Both a reckoning with fear and a recognition of the power of belonging, Days of Innocence and Wonder is a richly textured, deeply felt new novel from one of Australia's finest writers.