Reading by Lightning

For Lily Piper, life on the prairie is spare and austere. Nothing in her world responds to her hunger for life. When puberty hits, an abrupt shift in fate sends Lily to England, a place she thinks she may have invented. There at last, she experiences life in all its ambiguity, until she is called home to face a future she thought she had escaped. Reading by Lightning, Joan Thomas's long-awaited first novel, took readers by storm. A year after its publication, it had won numerous awards, found a large readership, and been selected by popular vote for On the Same Page, Manitoba's one book reading experience.