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'Unexpectedly funny' - New York Times

'Full of imagination, humour and invention ... A glorious debut**' - Irish Times**

'Mesmerising ... She writes with a heartbreaking clarity ... and is dexterously able to evoke emotional extremity through pitch-perfect narrative compression**' - The Times**

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THE EXQUISITE DEBUT NOVEL FROM THE AUTHOR OF WEATHER, SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2020

To eight-year-old Grace Davitt, her mother, Anna, is a puzzling yet wonderful mystery. This is a woman who has seen a sea serpent in the lake, who paints a timeline of the universe on the sewing-room wall, and who teaches her daughter a secret language which only they can speak.

For Grace's father, however, the only truth is science, and increasingly he finds himself shut out by Anna as she draws Grace deeper and deeper into a strange world of myth and obsession.

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Selected as a Book of the Year in Guardian, Telegraph, Observer, Irish Times and New York Times

'The charisma and damage of madness lend a desperate glamour' - Elle

'A gem of a book' - Tatler

'Brilliantly captures the confusion of childhood' - Red