Description
‘Truly one of the most beautiful stories you’ll ever read’ JOANNA CANNON
‘A mad, sad, funny debut’ PATRICK GALE
‘Will stay with me for a long time’ MARK WATSON
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Powerful, hopeful and utterly extraordinary, this is a truly original tale of love and loss, told with warmth and imaginative humour, from an unforgettable new voice in fiction. Isaac stands alone on a bridge and screams into the river below. And then, an answer.
A cry of despair perhaps even greater than his own. The sound draws Isaac into the woods. What he finds there changes everything.
It’s a tale that might seem familiar. A broken man and an unexpected guest, who can’t stay forever. But real life isn’t a story.
It’s full of truths, messy and surprising, that Isaac has been hiding from his new, improbable friend…
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‘An extraordinary story . . . brimming with magic and – perhaps most importantly – hope’ GLAMOUR
‘It is rare that a book makes such an impact on me’ RUTH HOGAN
‘This book is just sublime’ BRYONY GORDON
‘A mesmerising debut, capturing everything that’s funny and sad about real life’ DAVID WHITEHOUSE
‘A bold, beautiful undertaking’ POORNA BELL
Isla –
Isaac stands on a bridge wall, looking down into an abyss that echoes the void in his own heart. He screams… and hears a scream in reply, coming from the nearby woods. What he finds when he hunts for the source of that scream will drag him out of his abyss and bring light to his dark world of grief. This story had me frequently giggling and then sobbing with hacking coughs. An incredible lightness of touch and comic finesse made the subjects of loss and grief so much easier to bear. (And just when you think you know who or what the egg actually is, something will happen to confound your confidence…) A beautifully rendered tale of a sensitive subject.