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Last House Before the Mountain

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Last House Before the Mountain

By: Monika Helfer, Gillian Davidson - translator
Narrated by: Kristin Atherton
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Bloomsbury presents Last House Before the Mountain by Monika Helfer, read by Kristin Atherton.

'Beautiful and heartbreaking ... I absolutely loved it' Monica Ali, Sunday Times Bestselling author of Love Marriage

'A poignant, captivating, beautifully woven family saga. As honest as Elena Ferrante, with the folkloric intensity of Téa Obreht' Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times Bestselling author of The Exiles

Maria and Josef live with their children in a valley in westernmost Austria. When the First World War breaks out and Josef is drafted into the army, Maria is left to provide for her family alone. Every day is a struggle against starvation, the harsh alpine climate and the hostile nearby villagers who see Maria as little more than a beautiful temptress out for the men left behind. But when a red-haired stranger arrives in the village, Maria feels happiness seep back into her life and she faces a choice whose consequences will affect the lives of her family for generations to come.

Based on the internationally bestselling and award-winning Austrian novelist Monika Helfer's own family history, Last House Before the Mountain is a propulsive, haunting, multi-layered saga about love, family, and the hidden wages of war.(P)2023 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC 20th Century Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction World War I Village
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Critic reviews

[Last House] is beautiful and heartbreaking, and readers will fall in love with Maria. It’s also a profound meditation on the stories we tell about ourselves, the stories others tell about us, how those stories are handed down the generations, and the effect of inherited narratives and memories on our lives. I absolutely loved it
A poignant, captivating, beautifully woven family saga. As honest as Elena Ferrante, with the folkloric intensity of Téa Obreht, Last House Before the Mountain explores the ways we reconstruct our family histories in an attempt to understand who we are
Helfer brings a great deal of nuance to her exploration of female desire and vulnerability, male power, and community division.
This is a novel about what’s hidden and what happens when it is revealed ... What distinguishes Last House Before the Mountain from a hundred other family stories is its charm
Last House Before the Mountain by Monika Helfer is a masterclass in literary compression. In just 125 pages, Helfer brings a whole world of wonder, loss and deep, deep longing to indelible life
Monika Helfer powerfully transfigures the lives of a family who exist physically and emotionally at the edge of their society, as the flames of war reshape their shadowed world forever
The whole, biographically inspired family drama tells of the greatest feelings we have: Love, anger, envy and grief
Every sentence resonates in hazy, indescribable beauty
In Monika Helfer's novel, not only every word is right, but every syllable
A powerful, autofictional family epic
All stars
Most relevant
The book skips back and forth between times which is a surprise the first time but you quickly get used to it. And once you do, (and the narration helps with that), it's a beautiful story. My favourite scene was the biting of the hand which had me laughing out loud

Masterful narration

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