AN IRISH EXAMINER BOOK OF THE YEARSHORTLISTED FOR THE BUTLER LITERARY AWARDSHORTLISTED FOR THE KATE O'BRIEN AWARD'Touching and darkly beautiful' Irish Sunday Independent'Powerful, uncompromising' Irish Times'Utterly absorbing, a novel that keeps you guessing right to the end' Kit de Waal1982. Northern Ireland. Nuala Malin is tied to a life she doesn't want by her daughter Sam and baby son PJ. An affair with a seventeen-year-old boy reminds her of a future she hasn't given up on, but it can't last, and when her chance to leave comes, she takes it.1994. If Sam Malin has a god then it is Kurt Cobain. Music is the only thing that brings her peace. She wants a life away from the North and its troubles, away from her da who can't talk about the past but seems stuck there, waiting for Sam's mother to return. A mother Sam barely knew.Escape seems out of reach until Sam meets a jagged, magnetic older man, drawn to him in a way she can't yet comprehend.She falls for him, unable to say no.Sam is more like her mother than she knows.
