About the Author

Ariel S. Winter was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Shamus Award, and the Macavity Award for his novel The Twenty-Year Death. He is also the author of the children’s picture book One of a Kind, illustrated by David Hitch, and the blog We Too Were Children, Mr. Barrie. He lives in Baltimore.

Reviews

"Providing further evidence of the futility of genre labels, BARREN COVE is a thoughtful and affecting family drama that just happens to be about robots. Winter’s vision of a machine-ruled dystopia is a quiet country manor where a few mechanical people search for meaning in the mysteries of their programming. An unsettling portrait of humanity as seen through the eyes of its creations."
*Isaac Marion, New York Times bestselling author of WARM BODIES and THE LIVING*

“BARREN COVE is a touching and funny and skillfully written novel and an original take on science fiction. I'm not a great fan of this genre, but I can see, with this one book, how Mr. Winter could make me one. The writing is clean and highly readable; the characters are believable, despite being robots; the dialog is ear-perfect, and the plot never sags or lets up for a minute. I had a great time reading it.”
*Stephen Dixon, National Book Award nominated author of FROG and INTERSTATE*

“A meticulously imagined story that reads like The Wasp Factory soldered into Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. The pages really skittered by. Genuinely literary science fiction.”
*Natasha Pulley, author of the internationally bestselling THE WATCHMAKER OF FILIGREE STREET*

“Bold, innovative and thrilling.”
*on THE TWENTY-YEAR DEATH*

“Extraordinary…seductive, even sinister….like some glittering spiderweb that catches the eye of an admiring fly.”
*on THE TWENTY-YEAR DEATH*

"An absolute astonishment."
*on THE TWENTY-YEAR DEATH*

"Wildly, audaciously original."
*on THE TWENTY-YEAR DEATH*

"A delight."
*on THE TWENTY-YEAR DEATH*

"Marvelous."
*on THE TWENTY-YEAR DEATH*

“A testament to style…[a] triumph.”
*on THE TWENTY-YEAR DEATH*

“If there was ever a born writer, Mr. Winter is one…sharp, smart, original, intensely interesting and ingenious.”
*on THE TWENTY-YEAR DEATH*

“Audacious and astonishingly executed….immersive, exhilarating, and revelatory.”
*on THE TWENTY-YEAR DEATH*

"Brilliant."
*on THE TWENTY-YEAR DEATH*

“Weaves a uniquely dreamy spell, and a lingering one. Lyrical, unexpected, and curiously affecting…a story that lodges uneasily in the heart and mind.”
*Kirkus Reviews*

“A quietly brilliant look at what it means to be human. This deserves to be a classic.”
*Booklist (starred review)*