Winner of Specsavers 2012 Crime Thriller Award for best debut novel, A Land More Kind than Home keeps us guessing with some truly inventive and disturbing characters. This tragic and incredibly personal novel deserves all the praise it is receiving. 'We never should've gone up there...' One Sunday, nine-year-old Jess Hall watches in horror as his autistic brother is smothered during a healing service in the mountains of North Carolina. The unimaginable violence that follows must be untangled by a local sheriff with his own tragic past. A Land More Kind Than Home is a spellbinding, heartbreaking story about cruelty and innocence, and the failure of religion and family to protect a child. It is a novel thick with stories and characters connected by faith, infidelity, and a sense of hope that is both tragic and unforgettable.