The Night Field by Donna Glee Williams is published today by Jo Fletcher Books. To mark the occasion, the publisher has provided the first chapter for me to share here on CR.

Pyn-Poi’s mother Marak wants her to grow up to be the matriarch of the tribe, learning how to cook, to make medicines, how to care for everyone, but Pyn-Poi would rather be out among the trees like her father Sook-Sook, learning how persuade tree roots into bridges, to feel when shoots are too crowded, when drooping leaves need attention.

Then something starts going wrong in The Real: when the rains come, instead of nourishment, they bring a noxious stench that’s poisoning people and plants alike. Pyn-Poi is the treewoman now: it’s her job. Their only chance is for her to climb to the land beyond the Wall, where the Ancestors live, to plead for their intercession

Pyn-Poi never expected to find a whole new world up there, with people who are very different from her own family and friends – a land where they are killing nature, and that’s killing The Real.

The trees have a job for Pyn-Poi, and to succeed, she is going to have to be brave and strong and true – no matter what.

Now: on with the excerpt…!

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