The Redeemed

"The plot of The Redeemed concerns the reuniting, or not, of the star-crossed, would-be lovers Leo Sercombe and Lottie Prideaux. The book opens in 1916 with Leo, now a boy-seaman on the battlecruiser HMS Queen Mary—shortly to be plunged into the Battle of Jutland—and Lottie at home in quiet Devon, following the local vet and absorbing the knowledge that will, eventually, lead to her training as a vet. Their paths are not smooth. “We witness the birth of something new, and the birth isn’t an easy one” But plot is the least of it. In The Redeemed we, like Leo and Lottie, move from what we might call the ‘prelapsarian’ world—the established, hierarchical world measured in horse-speed—towards the noisier, speedier world of the motor, with class barriers broken, or at least breached. Through their experiences, we witness the birth of something new, and the birth isn’t an easy one. Many critics describe Tim Pears’ prose as ‘lyrical’. It is, but there’s steel in the lyricism. Pears shies away from nothing. Too wise to go technicolour, he instead deploys meticulous detail to intensify emotional heft. Reading The Redeemed is like watching a master craftsman at work. All authors of trilogies would prefer that you started with book one, so do start the West Country Trilogy with The Horseman , then turn to The Wanderers , and then come to The Redeemed . But to qualify for the Walter Scott Prize, a book must stand alone. So if you were to read only The Redeemed , you would find a book complete in itself."