Children’s Crusade

'A tour de force family drama' ELLE 'Bursting with poignancy' NEW YORKER 'Tender, absorbing' CATHERINE NEWMAN 'First-rate storytelling' BBC 'A riveting novel about how family molds us – for good and ill – and the grace that comes with forgiveness' PEOPLE MAGAZINE Bill Blair finds the land by accident, three wooded acres in a rustic community south of San Francisco. The year is 1954, long before anyone will call this area Silicon Valley. It is here that he will fall in love with Penny Greenway, build a home and raise a perfect family. Decades later, the lives of the three oldest Blair children are upended by the return of their younger brother, James – the wayward son – whose sudden presence forces to light the siblings' past rivalries and grievances, and sets off a struggle over the family's future. From New York Times bestselling author, Ann Packer, The Children's Crusade explores the secrets, desires and heartbreaks of one Californian family over the course of five decades. ‘This is a novel with something to teach about forgiving the people we love’ NEWSDAY 'Superb … I’ve rarely read a novel so astute about the jumble of love and respect, rivalry and envy, empathy and scorn that makes up family dynamics’ SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE 'A beautiful novel that will stay with me' ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Ann Packer is the author of two short story collections and three novels, including the international bestseller The Dive from Clausen’s Pier, which received the Kate Chopin Literary Award, among many other prizes and honours. Her short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and in the O. Henry Prize Stories anthologies, and her work has been translated into over a dozen languages. She lives between New York, the Bay Area and Maine. Her latest novel, Some Bright Nowhere, is published by 4th Estate.