Marina Endicott 

Winner of the Saskatchewan Book of the Year Award and City of Saskatoon Book Award • A spare and powerful new novel from the award-winning author of Good to a Fault and The Little Shadows.

“Powerful and impressive.” —Toronto Star


“A gripping novel . . . typical of [Endicott’s] fluent mastery.” —Winnipeg Free Press

When Julia arrives in Medway, accompanying her beloved Hardy on his first posting as an RCMP constable, she tries to explain her new life to old friends from the city but can find no shared vocabulary to convey this rural reality, let alone police life. As Hardy disappears into long days at work, Julia takes a job as editor of the local newspaper, the Observer. While she chronicles the surface joys and sorrows of their new community, Hardy is immersed in violence and loss, and Julia can only witness his increasing exhaustion. Though this new life together begins as an adventure, time conspires to darken and deepen it.

Grounded in Marina Endicott’s own experience in Mayerthorpe, Alberta, The Observer is an essential story about the fragility of life and law in a tightknit community, from one of our most beloved storytellers.