The White Rock

Author Anna Hope
Narrator Naomi Wirthner, Kyle Soller, Anna Hope
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Publish Date 25 August 2022
Run Time 9 hours and 1 minute
Format Audio
Genre Family life fiction, Historical fiction, Narrative theme: Sense of place.

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What to expect

In a spellbinding narrative of sacrifice and survival, chaos and connection, four characters are caught up in the tides of history over three centuries and drawn to the sacred White Rock of San Blas off the coast of Mexico.
In 2020 an Englishwoman travels to give thanks for her child, a singer in 1969 runs from the law, from his rabid fans and an America burning with the fever of the Vietnam War, two Yoeme sisters are torn from their homeland at the start of the twentieth century, and in 1775 a Spanish Lieutenant prepares to set sail from the White Rock to continue the conquest of the Pacific coast.

The White Rock is a breathtaking novel about what happens when the stories we have lived by can no longer keep us safe.

Critics Review

Precise and perceptive … Deeply satisfying … We may struggle to find hope, Hope tells us, but it is there in the landscape, in faith and memory and ritual, in the ancient unchanging silences that persist’

Guardian

An eco-novel you actually want to read … She’s an assured author with a knack for an arresting image … It leaves you with a gentle sense that things keep going

The Times

Its narrative sweep is capacious … It has ambition to match, musing on freedom and reciprocity, on the redemptive power of storytelling and the sustaining force of ritual … Demonstrating impressive stylistic verve

Observer

Mesmerising … Imaginative … Among its many impressive elements is Hope’s handling of the past … Her greatest talent is in getting under the skin of her characters … There is a subtle plangency in this powerful portrait of human folly and ferocity

The Herald

Deeply moving … I, for one, hope we hear plenty more from her

i news

Full of wisdom about the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nature of our lives

Good Housekeeping

Lyrical and timely

Stella

Mysterious and beautiful. It reminded me of Cloud Atlas, but it’s very much itself: so bold and wild, but controlled and fierce. It’s stunning writing and it has left me with hope, that we can tell stories like these even as the carbon builds, and that imagination and ideas remain powerful and valid

Russell T. Davies, writer of It's A Sin

Perfectly crafted, evocative prose which effortlessly transported me through two hundred and fifty years of history

Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground

Brilliant. A stunning book of extraordinary, audacious scale

Sadie Jones, author of The Snakes

Poetic, philosophical and wildly captivating… Anna Hope captures the human condition and feeds it treats while you watch it shimmer. Her characters dance, crawl and blast off the page, like mystical beings who are at the same time solidly human. I swam in this book and didn’t want to come up for air

Emma Jane Unsworth, author of Animals and Adults

I loved it. I became invested in each of the different eras and was struck by the sense of unknowable forces outliving us all. It is full of wisdom, intricate and emotional, and it will linger in my head for a long time

Dave Haslam, author of Sonic Youth Slept On My Floor

Anna Hope is such a generous and sensitive writer, and The White Rock is full of extraordinary voices and ideas. Absolutely a story for our times, and a fiercely important one, too

Clover Stroud, author of The Red of my Blood

I loved the sparseness, the moments of poetry, the quiet brutality. The voice throughout is fierce and graceful and utterly compelling; each central character is rich and beautifully pinpointed. It is her strongest work yet

Melody Razak, author of Moth

The White Rock is a sublime, poetic, and visionary work of art

Ron Rash, author of In the Valley

‘Profoundly intelligent and humane. Deserves to feature on many a prize shortlist’

GUARDIAN, on Expectation

‘Thoughtful, beautifully written, honest. A sensual book. I URGE YOU TO READ IT’

MARIAN KEYES, on Expectation

One of the most intensely readable novels I’ve encountered this year

METRO, on Expectation

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