FROM THE COSTA AWARD-WINNING, WOMEN'S PRIZE-SHORTLISTED AUTHOR OF UNSETTLED GROUND

'A stunning piece of speculative fiction' The i

'A haunting novel about love, survival and everything in between ... One to get excited about' Stylist, Best Modern Dystopia

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Humans are useless at learning from their mistakes. We just have to keep making new plans.

When Neffy wakes up from an uneasy sleep in a hospital bed, nothing is as it should be. There is no food, and nobody to tend to her. The city streets outside her window have fallen silent. She doesn't know it yet, but a debilitating new virus is sweeping the globe, and the world will never be the same again.

Feverish, confused, and wary of the strangers trapped inside with her, Neffy finds solace in her own memories of the past - even the memories of the mistakes that led her here.

But as the days turn into weeks, it is clear that Neffy will have to make a choice. How do you choose between a past that has already disappeared forever, and a future you can't begin to imagine?

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'Unsettling, moving and thoughtful, with horror lurking at the edges, this is a subtle, elegant novel. Claire Fuller is a huge talent' Lucy Atkins, author of Magpie Lane

'Compulsive and thoroughly convincing. Terrific!' Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures

Claire Fuller was born in Oxfordshire, England, in 1967. She gained a degree in sculpture from Winchester School of Art, but went on to have a long career in marketing and didn't start writing until she was forty. She has written four previous novels: Unsettled Ground, which in 2021 won the Costa Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Woemn's Prize for Fiction, Our Endless Numbered Days, which won the Desmond Elliott Prize, Swimming Lessons, which was shortlisted for the RSL Encore Award, and Bitter Orange. She has an MA in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of Winchester and lives in Hampshire with her husband.