by Sebastian Barry (Faber £8.99, 320 pp) ‘I am Winona.’ Sebastian Barry’s heroine introduces herself in the first sentence of his new novel. But she is not Winona — or not exactly. She is a child of the Native American Lakota tribe. Her family were massacred when she was a child, and she has been adopted by Thomas McNulty and his partner, John Cole, the protagonists of Barry’s earlier Costa Prize-winning novel, Days Without End. The latest addition to Barry’s cycle of novels explores the bonds of family relationships. In the lawless atmosphere of 19th-century Tennessee, Winona’s adoptive family seems painfully fragile but, amid the chaos, the certainties of justice and kindness hold fast. Barry’s beautifully written novel is a heart-stopping exploration of the healing power of love.