Lorna Parry lives with her three sons, each one lurching uncomfortably into adulthood. In the claustrophobic loneliness of her own home, Lorna orbits around her sons and struggles to talk to them; she’s still angry at her ex-husband, uncomfortable around her father’s new girlfriend, and works quietly as the only employee left in a deserted London archive. Life seems precariously balanced. Then a shocking event occurs in the stationery cupboard at the boys’ school and her world threatens to implode.

Praised for her taut and subtle prose, Janet Davey returns with an unsettling new novel about family and strangers. Her portrait of lives at crisis point is a masterful study in rendering the everyday beautiful and surprising.