Since a deadly virus and the violence that followed wiped out his parents and most of his community, Finn has lived alone on the rugged coast with only his loyal dog Rowdy for company.

He has stayed alive for two winters—hunting and fishing and trading food, and keeping out of sight of the Wilders, an armed and dangerous gang that controls the north, led by a ruthless man named Ramage.

But Finn’s isolation is shattered when a girl runs onto the beach. Rose is a Siley—an asylum seeker—and she has escaped from Ramage, who had enslaved her and her younger sister, Kas. Rose is desperate, sick, and needs Finn’s help. Kas is still missing somewhere out in the bush.

And Ramage wants the girls back—at any cost.

Text Publishing. (n.d.). The Road To Winter. Retrieved from https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/the-road-to-winter

Mark Smith lives on Victoria’s Surf Coast, where he runs an outdoor education campus for a large Melbourne boys’ school. His debut novel The Road To Winter (Text, 2016) was shortlisted for the Australian Indie Book Awards, the Aurealis Awards, The Readings YA Book Prize and the WA Young Readers’ Book Awards. It was been published in both the UK and US this year. The sequel, Wilder Country, will be released in August, 2017, and the third of the Winter trilogy, in late 2018. Mark is also an award winning writer of short fiction, with credits including the 2015 Josephine Ulrick Literature Prize and the 2013 Alan Marshall Short Story Prize, and his work has appeared in Best Australian Stories 2014 & 2015, Review of Australian Fiction, The Big Issue and The Australian. 

Uplit. (n.d.). Welcome to Dystopia with Mark Smith. Retrieved from https://bwf.org.au/uploads/Education%20Resources%20-%20Mark%20Smith.pdf

Text Publishing. (2016, June 2). Mark Smith on The Road To Winte. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV8XqJr4jJM&ab_channel=TextPublishing

• Shortlisted, Indie Book Award for Young Adult, 2017
• awardShortlisted, West Australian Young Readers' Book Award, 2017
• awardShortlisted, Western Australian Science Fiction Foundation's Aurealis Award, 2016
• awardShortlisted, Readings Young Adult Book Prize, 2017
• awardShortlisted, Queensland Literary Award: Griffith University Young Adult Book Award, 2017
• awardShortlisted, Foreword Indies Awards: Young Adult Fiction, United States, 2017
• awardLonglisted, Best Designed Children’s/Young Adult Series, Australian Book Design Awards, 2020

Text Publishing. (n.d.). The Road To Winter. Retrieved from https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/the-road-to-winter

Joan's Book Review. (2016, June 23). Joan Mackenzie Reviews The Road To Winter by Mark Smith [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeWzbyV-HyU&ab_channel=JoansBookReviews