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Adder Stone
Not yet published
Expected 5 Nov 26'Thoroughly enjoyable, vivid and evocative' Margaret Drabble
It is 1963 and in north Wales the Jones family are being forcibly ejected from the land they have farmed for generations. Their valley is to be drowned, turned into a reservoir for the people of Liverpool.
While her husband Dai is grief-stricken, Olwen Jones privately sees it as a blessing, an unforeseen chance to escape the narrow confines of the valley. But for her teenage son Emyr, Liverpool's careless arrogance is proof that Wales will never be free to decide its own future until, like Ireland, it breaks the shackles of English imperialism.
Based on true events, Adder Stone is an exploration of personal identity and the possibilities and limits of love. How far will we go for our child or for our country? Who are we when we lose the places and the people that define us? And how much, in the end, is it possible to forgive?
It is 1963 and in north Wales the Jones family are being forcibly ejected from the land they have farmed for generations. Their valley is to be drowned, turned into a reservoir for the people of Liverpool.
While her husband Dai is grief-stricken, Olwen Jones privately sees it as a blessing, an unforeseen chance to escape the narrow confines of the valley. But for her teenage son Emyr, Liverpool's careless arrogance is proof that Wales will never be free to decide its own future until, like Ireland, it breaks the shackles of English imperialism.
Based on true events, Adder Stone is an exploration of personal identity and the possibilities and limits of love. How far will we go for our child or for our country? Who are we when we lose the places and the people that define us? And how much, in the end, is it possible to forgive?
322 pages, Kindle Edition
Expected publication November 5, 2026
About the author
Clare Clark
14 books143 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Clare Clark (b.1967) is the author of The Great Stink, a Washington Post Best Book of the Year, and The Nature of Monsters.
Clark's novel Beautiful Lives (2012) was inspired by the lives of Gabriela and R.B. Cunninghame Graham.
Clare Clark (b.1967) is the author of The Great Stink, a Washington Post Best Book of the Year, and The Nature of Monsters.
Clark's novel Beautiful Lives (2012) was inspired by the lives of Gabriela and R.B. Cunninghame Graham.
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Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Adder Stone takes place in North Wales, and takes as it's backdrop a famous event in Welsh history - the flooding of Capel Celyn, a village flooded in the Tryweryn flooding of 1965 to create a reservoir, Llyn Celyn, in order to supply Liverpool with water. This event polarised communities and gave rise to the Free Wales Army, a nationalist group who attempted to bomb the investiture of the then Prince Charles at Caernarfon Castle in 1969.
Olwen and Dai Jones are being forcibly ejected from the land they have farmed for generations, just as the land around Capel Celyn was flooded and where farmers lost their land. They, and their son, Emyr, respond to this action in different ways. Dai becomes subdued, lost in the grief this action is causing. Emyr becomes aggressive towards what he sees as English oppression. But for Olwen it is something else, perhaps way towards freedom from the confines of the valley. As the dark hand of history weaves it's scythe across this land, the lives of this family will be irrevocable altered.
Adder Stone is a beautiful, well-written and engaging novel. Clare Clark draws her characters with warmth and empathy, in a very traditional, novelistic form of storytelling. It is written with grace and human understanding of what makes a family tick. It is a deeply beautiful novel.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.
Olwen and Dai Jones are being forcibly ejected from the land they have farmed for generations, just as the land around Capel Celyn was flooded and where farmers lost their land. They, and their son, Emyr, respond to this action in different ways. Dai becomes subdued, lost in the grief this action is causing. Emyr becomes aggressive towards what he sees as English oppression. But for Olwen it is something else, perhaps way towards freedom from the confines of the valley. As the dark hand of history weaves it's scythe across this land, the lives of this family will be irrevocable altered.
Adder Stone is a beautiful, well-written and engaging novel. Clare Clark draws her characters with warmth and empathy, in a very traditional, novelistic form of storytelling. It is written with grace and human understanding of what makes a family tick. It is a deeply beautiful novel.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review