A dysfunctional family reunites for the Christmas holiday from hell in this rediscovered festive classic with fangs for fans of Barbara Pym, Elizabeth Taylor and Stella Gibbons.
Cory is the child of two worlds: when his birth-people come, they will break his mother's heart . . . but they may also be this world's only salvation.
Six-year-old Gracie Lynn is perpetually curious and bighearted. Convinced she knows how to save her beloved grandfather John from the 'worm' that is eating his brain - a metaphor her mother once used to explain John's dementia and sundown syndrome -
The Am Spiegelgrund clinic, in glittering Vienna, masqueraded as a well-intentioned reform school for wayward boys and girls and a home for chronically ill children.
If it had another name, I never knew, but the locals called it the Loney - that strange nowhere between the Wyre and the Lune where Hanny and I went every Easter time with Mummer, Farther, Mr and Mrs Belderboss and Father Wilfred, the parish priest.
"A striking and highly enjoyable debut." (Sophie Hannah). "Could be the next Gone Girl success story." (Independent). Yasmin would give anything to have a friend..
Even a community on a small island can face threats and conflict - not just the threats of an ever-changing climate and inevitable disagreements - but also, the menace created when a less-than-benign government seeks to impose an unwelcome, ...