Beneath the Bonfire

'He writes with the insight of Nick Hornby and the rural authenticity of John Steinbeck and, somehow, pulls it off. Big time'

Daily Mail

Young couples gather to participate in an annual 'chainsaw party', cutting down trees for firewood in anticipation of the winter. A group of men spend a weekend in the wilderness where they grew up, and where some still find themselves trapped. An ageing environmentalist takes out his frustration and anger on a singular, unsuspecting target. A woman helps another get revenge against a man whose crime extends to an entire community.

In these ten stories, Nickolas Butler demonstrates his talent for portraying a place and its people with unparalleled tenderness, evoking the backroads and blue highways of America and capturing the unforgettable characters who call it home.

' Beneath the Bonfire is a truly beautiful collection . . . elegiac, funny, and dazzlingly dreamy, a look into the complicated inner lives of outwardly stoic souls'

Dean Bakopoulos, author of Summerlong

[thumbnail author photo © Olive Juice Studios]