Category Winner of the Costa Book Awards 2017, Costa Novel Award | One of our Books of the Year 2017
April 2017 Book of the Month.
Aged 13 a girl goes missing. The whole village turns out to search. Over the course of thirteen chapters and thirteen years we follow the affect of this tragedy on the villagers. We meet them all through brief snippets of their lives. In single chapters, with just their names to guide us, a picture of their village, their rural life, the pattern of the year, through lambing, panto, cricket, pub and New Year fireworks is built up. Miss a few lines and you could miss huge revelations. Kids grow, become teenagers, go to university. Couples come together, couples split. Babies are born, the old die, and nature rolls on. The style is abrupt, staccato, yet gets under your skin and sings to you. The novel centres on the missing girl but it is really about human nature, village life and the rhythm of a year. It is outstanding, stunning and immensely beautiful. ~ Sarah Broadhurst
The Costa Judges say: ‘An extraordinary novel – poetic, haunting and hypnotic.’
| Primary Genre | Modern and Contemporary Fiction |
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