Mortician Mylène Andrews spends her days dealing with death, but has never quite figured out how to live. After her estranged mother passes away, adult-orphaned Mylène sets out in her hearse to see the graveyards her mother visited before her death, guided by a collection of unsent postcards and the residual wake of a tragedy long-considered buried.

With an aversion to black, a colourful vintage wardrobe, and a caustic sense of humour, Mylène has always subverted expectations of how a funeral director should be. Over the course of her trip this helps her become an unlikely media sensation, as she encounters a smattering of strange characters and settings, including intrepid reporters, pesky rodents, and burial sites requiring scuba gear.

Brisk and darkly comic, Unrest is both a road trip story and a touching eulogy on life, death, and what we leave behind.

Emma Côté is from a small town in Northern Ontario, where the winters were long but the books were aplenty. As a result, she went on to study journalism, English literature and creative writing and most recently completed a postgraduate certificate in publishing. When Emma isn’t re-reading or re-writing a novel, she can be found taking walks in the forest, and asking people if she can pet their dog. Unrest is her debut novel.

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• Winner, 3-Day International Novel Contest