'Disruptive and graceful beyond anything I've read' SARAH HALL, author of Burntcoat 'Absolutely essential . . . gently and startlingly beautiful' JENN ASHWORTH, author of Ghosted 'A wondrous novel' TIM PEARS, author of The West Country Trilogy December 1962, the West Country. In the darkness of an old asylum, a young man unscrews the lid from a bottle of sleeping pills. In the nearby village, two couples begin their day. Local doctor, Eric Parry, mulling secrets, sets out on his rounds, while his pregnant wife sleeps on in the warmth of their cottage. Across the field, in a farmhouse impossible to heat, funny, troubled Rita Simmons is also asleep, her head full of images of a past life her husband prefers to ignore. He's been up for hours, tending to the needs of the small dairy farm he bo...

'Disruptive and graceful beyond anything I've read' SARAH HALL, author of Burntcoat 'Absolutely essential . . . gently and startlingly beautiful' JENN ASHWORTH, author of Ghosted 'A wondrous novel' TIM PEARS, author of The West Country Trilogy December 1962, the West Country. In the darkness of an old asylum, a young man unscrews the lid from a bottle of sleeping pills. In the nearby village, two couples begin their day. Local doctor, Eric Parry, mulling secrets, sets out on his rounds, while his pregnant wife sleeps on in the warmth of their cottage. Across the field, in a farmhouse impossible to heat, funny, troubled Rita Simmons is also asleep, her head full of images of a past life her husband prefers to ignore. He's been up for hours, tending to the needs of the small dairy farm he bo...