STILLWATER Format: Paperback

When Lizzy is forced to move to the Adventist commune of Stillwater, she is sure the end times have begun. She's not wrong.

Sixteen-year-old Lizzy is trapped, caught between her passion for science and the teachings of her Seventh-day Adventist father and Mennonite mother. But she isn't the only one with problems: her mother, Marie, is increasingly reliant on prescription medication to recover from a car accident that might – or might not – have been deliberately caused by her husband, Daniel.

In a bid to regain his social standing and self-esteem, Daniel moves the family to an Adventist commune in BC's Okanagan Valley, where Lizzy meets another recent arrival with secrets of his own. He helps her establish a clandestine connection to the outside world that she hopes will help her curb her tongue and retain her sanity long enough to finish high school, but her plans change when her younger brother, Zach, is threatened.

Lizzy and Zach flee to Marie's childhood home with their reluctant mother in tow. When her father arrives to take his family back to Stillwater, old resentments collide with new, forcing everyone to face a day of judgement.

Darcie Friesen Hossack is a graduate of the Humber School for Writers with roots in the Mennonite and Seventh-day Adventist communities. A career food writer and editor of the online WordCity Literary Journal, her short story collection, Mennonites Don't Dance (Thistledown Press), was a runner-up for the Danuta Gleed Award, and was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Ontario Library Association's Forest of Reading Evergreen Award for Adult Fiction. A resident of northern Alberta, Stillwater is her first novel.