<p>From multi-award-winning author Jock Serong comes <em>Cherrywood</em>, an imaginative, darkly playful and deeply meaningful delight, a novel about legacy, community, wonder, love and reinvention.</p><p><strong>Shortlisted Indie Book Awards for Fiction 2025</strong></p><p><strong>Shortlisted ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year 2025</strong></p>
<p><em>'One rainy Friday evening in the winter of 1993, a taxi swept through the streets of East Melbourne, on its way from the city to Richmond. That year was one of the few remaining when a great deal was known of the world but not yet so much that the world had become over-known. Small gaps remained ...'</em></p><p>Edinburgh, 1916: A rich Scottish industrialist, Thomas Wrenfether, impulsively embarks on a mad scheme to build a paddlesteamer out of dubiously sourced European cherrywood on the other side of the world, in booming Melbourne, Australia. But nothing goes according to plan.</p><p>Melbourne, 1993: Martha is a clever, lonely and frustrated lawyer. One night, on impulse, she stops at a strange pub in Fitzroy, The Cherrywood, for a bottle of wine. The mysterious building and its inhabitants make an indelible impression, and she slowly begins to deduce odd truths about the pub.</p><p>From multi-award-winning author Jock Serong comes a darkly delicious, playful and rich novel about legacy, community, wonder, love and reinvention - <em>Cherrywood </em>is haunting, magical and a true original.</p><p><strong>PRAISE FOR <em>CHERRYWOOD</em></strong></p><p>'Between the familiar and the magical comes a novel of romantic vision ... Rarely is historical fiction this fraught and alive' <em>Sydney Morning Herald</em></p><p>'Complex yet inviting ... Intricately plotted, spanning time and space, Cherrywood brings to mind the scope of Richard Powers's <em>The Overstory</em> and David Mitchell's <em>Cloud Atlas</em>, with strong homage to the works of Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges.' <em>Books+Publishing</em></p><p>'A beguiling story of dreamers and schemers and work ... There's a touch of magic realism here, as well as a deep interest in both characters and history, in cities and storytelling, in architecture and trees ... [and] a certain sweet sadness underlying it all.' ABC</p><p>'Intriguing, mysterious, a little gothic ... a unique tale set against the backdrop of Melbourne. A brilliant read' Radio New Zealand</p><p>'One of the most compelling and wonderfully bonkers novels of the year' Readings</p><p>'A wildly imaginative, intricately woven tale of beauty, love and loss. Serong is an exceptionally gifted writer, and Cherrywood is his best book yet' Mark Brandi</p><p>'Beneath its captivating intricacy lies an exploration of grief, love and the haunting proximity of the past ... A work of exuberance, rare charm and, above all, heart' Lucy Treloar</p><p>Sublime and haunting' Toni Jordan</p><p>'As magical as it is mesmerising. Every chapter presents the reader with another storytelling treasure more narratively wondrous than the last. Serong's wild imagination is a gift that keeps on giving.' Trent Dalton</p><p>'What an adventure. This beautiful novel of ambition and grief has me feeling ghosts at every step' Tim Rogers</p>