Synopses & Reviews
The #1 Indie Next Selection for November 2017, a Summer/Fall 2017 Indies Introduce Selection, a Fall 2017 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection, an Amazon Best of the Month in Literature & Fiction
Preempted by publishers around the world within days of the 2016 London Book Fair, The End We Start From heralds the arrival of Megan Hunter, a dazzling and unique literary talent. Hunter's debut is a searing original, a modern-day parable of rebirth and renewal, of maternal bonds, and the instinct to survive and thrive in the absence of all that's familiar.
As London is submerged below floodwaters, a woman gives birth to her first child, Z. Days later, she and her baby are forced to leave their home in search of safety. They head north through a newly dangerous country seeking refuge from place to place. The story traces fear and wonder as the baby grows, thriving and content against all the odds.
The End We Start From is an indelible and elemental first book — a lyrical vision of the strangeness and beauty of new motherhood, and a tale of endurance in the face of ungovernable change.
Review
“In her spare, stylish debut novel, The End We Start From, Megan Hunter depicts new motherhood against a climate- change cataclysm in which city-swallowing floods tip England into chaos....But the real strength of this wonderfully earthy novel is in its sharpened lens on motherhood’s apocalyptic-feeling joys and terrors, and how they can form an all-encompassing world.” Vogue
Review
"The End We Start From is strange and powerful, and very apt for these uncertain times. I was moved, terrified, uplifted — sometimes all three at once. It takes skill to manage that, and Hunter has a poet's understanding of how to make each word count." Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl With a Pearl Earring
Review
"In elegiac lines, Hunter tells a love story through the eyes of a new mother, who witnesses the death of an old life and the start of a new one...a perfect portrait of rebirth the final testament that time, and life, do go on, despite our best efforts." Elle Magazine
About the Author
Megan Hunter was born in Manchester in 1984, and now lives in Cambridge with her young family. She has a BA in English Literature from Sussex University, and an MPhil in English Literature: Criticism and Culture from Jesus College, Cambridge. Her poetry has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and she was a finalist for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award with her short story "Selfing." The End We Start From is her first book.