We’re so happy to announce that The Retreat Elisabeth de Mariaffi wins the Newfoundland and Labrador Book Award for Fiction!
The Newfoundland and Labrador Book Awards are held annually by the Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador (WANL) to recognize excellence in writing by authors residing in Newfoundland and Labrador.
She came looking for inspiration.Instead, disaster strikes.
Maeve Martin arrives at the High Water Center for the Arts, a gorgeous lodge nestled deep in the Rocky Mountains, determined to do one thing: begin her own dance company. A retired performer and mother of two, time is running out for her to find her feet again after the collapse of her disastrous—and violent—marriage. And at first, there’s a thrill to being on her own for the first time in years. Isolated in the snowy beauty of the retreat, Maeve can forget the ghost of her past for an hour, for a day.
But when an avalanche strikes, Maeve finds herself trapped with six other guests. They’ve lost all power, phone service, heat, and the road back to town. At first, there’s a sense of camaraderie—the fire is warm, the freezer well-stocked. But as the days pass and the storm rages on outside, tensions start to run high. Help is coming, so they just have to hold on, right?
Then the first guest meets an unspeakable death.
Followed by another.
Soon Maeve must admit how little she knows about these strangers . . . and how useless a locked door is if the darkness is already inside.
Elisabeth de Mariaffi is the critically acclaimed author of three books: the Giller Prize-nominated short story collection How to Get Along with Women (Invisible Publishing, 2012), the literary thriller The Devil You Know (HarperCollins Canada, Simon & Schuster U.S., Titan U.K., 2015), and the 1950s-era Hitchcock-style thriller, Hysteria (HarperCollins Canada, Titan U.K., 2018). Both Devil and Hysteria were named Globe and Mail Best Books and National Post Top 100 of the Year, and both were shortlisted for the prestigious Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, while The Devil You Know was also longlisted for the 2017 International DUBLIN Literary Award— and optioned immediately after publication. A winner of the 2016 WIFTV From Our Dark Side genre screenwriting competition, de Mariaffi’s resulting original vampire horr-com, Fly Girls, is currently in development with Triton Media. Elisabeth de Mariaffi has taught fiction and screenwriting at UBC, Memorial University, and through the Humber School for Writers. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Her newest thriller, The Retreat, came out July 2021 from Harper Collins Canada and Mulholland Books USA.
Elisabeth de Mariaffi is represented by Samantha Haywood.
To learn more, check out: https://wanl.ca/literary-awards/the-newfoundland-and-labrador-book-awards/