Julia Armfield

Featured Book

June, 1994. The storied North Face of Mount Varda has been untouched by mountaineers for decades. Its heights stand as a stark reminder of danger to climbers: the last ascent, made in the 1970’s, ended in tragedy and an unprecedented loss of life.

When Liam Holness and Petal Coulson-Carter, friends and celebrated climbers, are invited to join a team organised by media-savvy expeditionist Jim Callaghan in a previously unscaled route up the mountain, they are unsure about accepting his invitation. Liam, a working-class mountaineer, and Petal, a butch lesbian for whom climbing is akin to breathing, know what it is like to exist on the outside of mountaineering’s privileged sphere, and don’t want to be part of Jim’s media circus.

But the call of conquest is too strong, and soon Liam and Petal are in the alps preparing for ascent. Joining them on the expedition is Bill Franklin – Liam’s oldest rival whose temperate nature begins to break away at Liam’s defences, whilst Petal’s own heart is turned by a climber’s widow living in the town.

As summer draws on and the expedition looms closer, the climbers begin to experience sleepless nights, bad dreams, and hallucinations. And as they start to make their way up the mountain, the world and its regularities give way to something stranger. With the oxygen supply scarce and the altitude dizzying, how can Liam and Petal be sure of what is and isn’t real?

And when they look back on their long days and nights on the Varda, will they ever know what happened to those they left behind on its peaks?