The Shepherd’s Hut by Tim Winton

Condition: great. Hardcover 

'For the first time in me life I know what I want and I have what it takes to get me there. If you never experienced that I feel sorry for you.

But it wasn't always like this. I been through fire to get here. So be happy for me. And for fucksake, don't get in my way.'

Jaxie dreads going home. His mum's dead.

The old man bashes him without mercy, and he wishes he was an orphan. But no one's ever told Jaxie Clackron to be careful what he wishes for.

In one terrible moment his life is stripped to little more than what he can carry and how he can keep himself alive. There's just one person left in the world who understands him and what he still dares to hope for, But to reach her he'll have to cross the vast saltlands on a trek that only a dreamer or a fugitive would attempt.

This urgent masterpiece is a rifle shot of a novel - crisp, fast, shocking - about solitude and unlikely friendship, about the raw business of survival, bur most of all about what it takes to keep love and hope alive in a parched and brutal world.