BootsnAll Travel Community

A book recommendation for lovers of literary, character-driven fiction that explores the world: Adam's Peak by Heather Burt (Toronto: Dundurn, 2006).

“This fine first novel has much to offer: comedy and tragedy, domestic intimacy and panoramic sweep. […] It’s impressive too how Burt is able to bring to life such a large cast of characters — neighbours, old friends, relations — in a complex story that shrinks the globe.”
(Quill & Quire review)

"The plot deftly leaps several decades, from the 1940s to the present, longer than that if you count memories, and bridges Great Britain, Sri Lanka and Canada with a political sophistication worthy of a much more mature writer.” ( Winnipeg Free Press review)

"If the mark of successful fiction is its getting the reader to feel attached to the characters, then Heather Burt’s first novel is an unequivocal success." ( Canadian Literature review)

Adam's Peak weaves back and forth between a Colombo private school and a Montreal suburb, between a Ceylon tea estate at the end of the Second World War and a small Scottish town in the early 1960s, its characters struggling to come to terms with their powerful connections to the people and places they have tried desperately to escape.

For more information, please visit the author's website. And if you happen to read the book, I'd love to hear from you!