Shortlisted 2017 Costa First Novel Award: Is there a love so powerful it can bring someone back to life? Rebecca F. John's debut novel about how our longing for a soulmate can bring us to perfect happiness or desolation.

Is there a love so powerful it can bring someone back to life?

London, 1926. The shock of the First World War has given way to excess and debauchery - a playground for the Bright Young Things. On the edges are Henry and Ruby Twist, newly married with a baby on the way.

When Ruby is killed in a tragic accident, Henry is left with his grief and his infant daughter - a single father in a world without single fathers. Terrified she'll be taken from him, Henry stays away from prying eyes until one evening, a stranger steps out of the shadows and calls to him. He says he has lost his memory and emembers nothing but Henry's name, and his own: Jack Turner.

Henry is both terrified of and irresistibly drawn to Jack: why does this man seem so familiar, so magnetic? Why has he come to Henry under such strange circumstances? And could he be offering Henry a life to replace the one he lost when Ruby died?

'There are mysteries at the heart of this novel that are wonderfully compelling, while the psychologies of individual characters are so beautifully drawn ... Quiet, moving, and guaranteed to leave an impression.'
Clare Wigfall

'A prodigious writer of great intelligence and talent.'
Roshi Fernando

Illustration: Bill Bragg, Design: Peter Dyer