In the final year of the Civil War, 15-year-old horse thief Callum meets a girl who changes his life forever. Both he and the girl, Ava, are orphans—Callum is from Ireland and hasn’t seen his family in years, and Ava’s father and brother were casualties of war. After Callum’s band of marauders finds Ava in her crumbling, dilapidated home and threatens her, Callum sets out to rescue her, leaving the group of pillagers behind and stealing their leader’s horse as transport.
Soon the two find themselves pursued across the savage, war-ridden wilderness by a ruthless slave hunter, with a bounty on their heads. With dreams of making it to Atlanta, if not the Florida coast, Callum and Ava barrel headlong through the bleak, cold landscape with little food and protection, pushing through disappointment after disappointment with the hope that peace lies just around the corner.
Taylor Brown grew up on the Georgia coast and has lived in Buenos Aires, San Francisco and western North Carolina, where much of Fallen Land is set. Filled with metaphor, poetic imagery and rich descriptions, Fallen Land is a beautifully written chronicle of love and hardship, following two people who are meant to be as they fight their way through a world seemingly set against them.
This article was originally published in the January 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.
