If you read one book this summer (although why would you read just one?!), you wouldn’t be going wrong by making it The Stranding by Kate Sawyer. In the words of Marian Keyes, it’s ‘GORGEOUS and original and captivating’, and we love the extract Kate generously shares with us in this podcast episode!

Ruth lives in the heart of London. Working, drinking, falling in love: the rhythm of her vivid and complicated life is set against a hum of darkening news reports from which she deliberately turns away. In the wake of a failed romance, she departs for New Zealand to fulfil her life dream of working with whales. But when Ruth arrives, disturbing world events catch up with her. Far from home and with no real hope of survival, she finds herself climbing into the mouth of a beached whale with a stranger to escape the carnage. When they emerge, it is to a landscape that bears no relation to the world they once knew.

The Stranding is published by Coronet and available now. We recommend buying from your local indie, enjoying from the library, or you can grab a copy from our shop on Bookshop.org (where some of the proceeds going to support indies around the UK).

Podcast produced and edited by Megan Bay Dorman

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