Following Never So Green, a work for young adults, and the stories of Irish Girl, Johnston’s first novel for adults, Descent, is driven as much by its action and suspense as by its compelling descriptions of place. Johnston powerfully charts the dissolution of the Courtland family over the course of the two years following the morning that eighteen-year-old Caitlin goes running with her brother in the Rockies—and only the brother returns. (Algonquin)