The Raw Light of Morning is a powerful debut novel about women and children finding humour and love in the aftermath of domestic violence.

Fourteen-year-old Laurel Long does something unimaginable. In a house at the back end of Woods Road, she commits an act of violence that alters the course of her life. Laurel finds herself living in Stephenville, a small town on Newfoundland's west coast, trapped in a system of poverty and generational neglect, haunted by trauma.

Laurel needs a fresh start, and education is her ticket out, but when her past starts to catch up with her, she must decide how far she will go to protect herself and the ones she loves. (From Breakwater Books)

Shelly Kawaja is an author from Newfoundland. Her writing has appeared in places like the Humber Literary Review, the Dalhousie Review, Postcolonial Text and PACE. Her short story Shotgun won the gritLit 2020 fiction contest. The Raw Light of Morning is Kawaja's first novel.