Adder Stone

The members of an uprooted Welsh family go their own ways in a brutal clash over land, belonging and identity. Driven by love and anger, they must decide what – and whom – they can bear to lose.

‘A beautiful, breathtakingly written book, with shades of Claire Keegan. A novel that lives in the memory long after the last page is read’ Kate Hamer, author of The Lost Girls

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?

OUT NOVEMBER 2026. AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER NOW

Hardback: 320pp

Published: Wilton Square (November 2026)

ISBN: 9781806770519